Unconquerable Spirits
by Scott Washburn
Summary: We all know how Eywa intervened during the Battle of Pandora to save the day. But suppose She had not?
1. Chapter 1

Unconquerable Spirits

By Scott Washburn

Note: This is NOT part of my Aftermath series, although it makes use of some of the characters I created for it. My story "From the Jaws of Victory" could be considered a prequel to this story.

Chapter One

"Seze is dead. They are very close, they are many."

Neytiri pressed her back against a tree and tried to catch the thoughts whirling through her brain. The battle, the battle was going badly. The people all around her were retreating, running away from the terrible Sky People weapons. She had heard Trudychacon tell Jake that her machine was going down. Normspellmon and Tsu'tey were not answering Jake's calls. And a line of Sky People warriors were only a few spans away, moving right toward her.

"Do not attack!" cried Jake over the communicator. "Do you read me, Neytiri?" She could hear the worry in his voice. He wanted her to run, too. Save herself. And she very much wanted to run. She wanted to get back to Jake, feel his strong arms around her, cry on his shoulder after this awful day.

But she couldn't. Wouldn't.

The battle had to be won. Somehow. Everything depended on victory. Everything would be lost with defeat. She pulled out an arrow and knocked it to the bowstring. Her breath was coming in short gasps and she'd never been so afraid. She wanted to live. Oh, how she wanted to live! With Jake! The love she felt for him was like the love she felt for her people, for Eywa!

"Do not attack! Fall back now! Get out of there! That's an order!" Jake's voice was becoming desperate, did he know what she was going to do? She stood up and drew back her bow. She would strike one last blow. For her people. For her world.

For Ewya!

"Neytiri!"

With a scream of rage she leapt from behind the tree as the humans came abreast of it. Her arrow took the warrior with the fire-spitter in the chest. His eyes wide with shock, he twisted away, his weapon's flames engulfing the human next to him. She dove, rolled, and came up in the midst of the enemy. She lashed out with her bow and knife. One, two, three of her foes fell before her. Then the horrible noise of their weapons filled the air and blasts of fire slashed past her. A fourth enemy staggered away clutching the ruin her knife had made of his throat when something slammed into her. Her legs gave way and she fell to the ground stunned, unable to move. A Sky Person loomed over her with his weapon ready. "Good-bye, Ma Jake," she whispered. "Eywa watch over you."

But then an arrow appeared from nowhere, impaling the human and he tumbled away, out of her sight. Cries and shouts and the roar of the human guns erupted all around her. She tried to push herself up to see what was happening, but the whole world was growing dim and there was no strength in her arms. The blackness engulfed her and she knew no more.

[Scene Break]

"Time to target two minutes," said Tech Sergeant Jimenez.

Colonel Miles Quaritch nodded in satisfaction. He touched his com. "Valkyrie One-Six, you are cleared and hot."

"Copy, Dragon, we are starting our bomb run," came the reply. It was about time! The fight had gone on far longer than he'd expected. Far longer than it should have. He glanced down at the Master Force Display and grimaced. Twenty-two of the helicopters lost! Five more damaged and returning to base. He hadn't expected to lose more than five during the entire operation! Selfridge was going to shit himself when he learned how much money the Corporation had just spent today securing his new mine for him. Quaritch didn't give a damn about the money, but losing that many ships and irreplaceable crews was not good. If this war went on, he couldn't sustain these sorts of casualties for long. _But the war won't go on! I'm going to end it in about ninety seconds!_

[Scene Break]

Jake shouted into the com: "Neytiri! Answer me!"

But there was no answer. He clenched his fists and bowed his head. She was gone. The woman he'd loved so much was gone. Dead. Just like everyone else. Grace, Trudy, Norm, Tsu'Tey. All gone. Everyone in the universe that he cared about was gone. A red despair filled him.

Well, Norm's human body was still alive, but _no one_ was going to be alive if he didn't stop that shuttle! The huge white vehicle was just below him now. It had veered off during the first Na'vi attack as its escorts had to deal with the diving banshees, but now it was lined up again and heading straight for the Tree of Souls. There weren't enough warriors left to stop it.

It was up to him.

He looked again and saw that the remaining enemy helicopters were gathering around the shuttle, hugging it close to make sure nothing could bother it. Quaritch's big command ship was only a hundred meters off to the side.

Perfect…

"Come on!" he shouted to Toruk. His own rage was passing through the tsahaylu and the huge beast roared in response and folded back his wings. A handful of other warriors closed in around him as he began his dive. Good, maybe they could draw some fire. The speed increased rapidly and he rushed toward the shuttle. Some fire started coming in and a few bullets tore through Toruk's wings, but the helicopters were all designed to shoot straight ahead or down or to the sides, not up. A serious design flaw that was going to cost them!

He guided Toruk toward a spot just behind the shuttle and then, only about fifty meters above it, he gave the command and the huge flier spread his wings fully and curved his flight around the rear overhang of the shuttle—and right through the open cargo ramp! Jake could clearly see the shock on the faces of the gunners as the huge red shape appeared out of nowhere and hurtled straight toward them. Even so, they all opened fire and Toruk screamed as the bullets punched holes along his neck and down his sides. But the small-caliber weapons couldn't stop something that size and an instant later Toruk plowed right through the rear gunners, snapping off the weapons and crushing the men manning them. His jaws caught another man and sliced him in two.

Jake leapt off Toruk's back and began spraying the cargo hold with fire from his gun. Men screamed and fell. Toruk dragged himself forward and killed another shrieking human. Jake emptied his weapon and tossed it aside. There were others scattered all over but his hands were too big to use them. He drew his knife and advanced on the first pallet of mine explosives. A control box of some sort with a red light hung from one side. It wasn't like any standard military detonator he'd ever seen. A time fuse? Impact? Altitude? He couldn't tell. How to set the damn thing off and not be here when it happened?

_Blam! _Something punched him in the side and he cried out. Again. A man had come around from behind the pallet of explosives and was firing his pistol. Jake lashed out with his knife and nearly took the man's head off. But there was more firing and bullets whipped around him, another struck him in the leg. He retreated behind the pallet. Enemy reinforcements were coming in from the forward compartment of the shuttle.

A roar made him look back. Toruk was being hit again and again, but the huge beast was wedged into the cargo hold and couldn't get any further forward to attack his tormentors. Blood poured down his side and he flailed his wings uselessly. As Jake looked, a Sampson maneuvered in close behind the shuttle and the door gunner began pouring fire into Toruk's body.

_One way trip. Well, I knew the job was dangerous when I took it._

He was out of time. There was nothing left to do. Jake grabbed one of his pairs of grenades, pulled the pins, released the safety catches, and shoved the grenades into the pallet of explosives. He briefly toyed with the idea of throwing himself out the rear of the shuttle, but his injured leg buckled under him. _Five second delay on the grenades. I'd never get…_

The world exploded around him.

[Scene Break]

"Sir, Valkyrie One-Six is reporting trouble in the cargo bay," said Sergeant Veluska from Dragon's communication post. Quaritch turned.

"Well, tell them to get it cleared up," he snapped. "We drop in thirty seconds." Damn! He didn't want to have to come back and do another run. He walked over to look out the left-hand windows…

A blinding flash of light was immediately followed by a massive blow that slammed him against a bulkhead. He fell to the deck, blood in his mouth and stars sparkling in front of his eyes. The Dragon's control crew were all shouting at the top of their lungs. There was a roaring in his ears and wind tugged at him. The burning stink of Pandora's atmosphere was in his eyes and his nose. The deck tilted under him and he sprawled and slid until he came up against the support for a control chair. Coughing, he pulled himself up and clawed an exo-pack out of a case on the bulkhead. He fit it over his face and breathed deeply. "Status!" he gasped.

"The… the shuttle blew up!" said Jimenez, pulling a mask over his face.

"Evans is dead!" said Lieutenant Pinchot, the pilot. Quaritch looked into the gunner's compartment and saw Evans slumped in his seat, the canopy next to him was completely blown in and fragments were everywhere. Damn, he'd been fond of Evans. "Engine Three is overheating, sir, not sure what our other damage is."

"Communications are out, sir!" cried Veluska. "The back-up, too!"

Cursing Quaritch staggered over to the portside windows. All the plastic was gone and only the frames remained. What he saw brought more curses. An enormous cloud of smoke hung in the air, flaming bits of debris rained down to the forest below. The explosives in the shuttle had gone off prematurely. How? Why? As he watched, he saw one of his gunships, trailing smoke, suddenly spin out of control and plummet after all the other junk. He twisted around to look at the Master Display and snarled when he saw that it had more red than green on it.

The deck shifted under him and he clutched a handhold as the Dragon banked to the right and began to turn. "What are you doing, Lieutenant? Why are we turning?"

"I'm aborting, sir. I'm losing power on Number Three and we need to get back to base ASAP. No choice."

"I didn't authorize that! Resume our former course and take us down. We'll have to finish the job ourselves."

"We're _going_ down, sir! And if I don't get us back to base we won't be coming back up again! Sorry, sir, but this crate will _not_ fly on three engines!"

"Damn it! I gave you an order Pinchot!"

"And I'm in command of this ship, sir! You might command the force, but it's my ship and I make the decisions here."

Quaritch swore. Technically Pinchot was correct: he was just a passenger and the pilot had final say on anything concerning the safety of his ship. But damn it! That friggin' tree was right there! They might never have a better chance to destroy it. It wouldn't be as dramatic as the bomb from the shuttle, but the Dragon could still wipe the thing off the face of the planet. Quaritch drew his pistol. "I'm giving you an order Lieutenant. Turn us around. Now."

"You gonna shoot me, sir?" said Pinchot, glancing back for an instant. "Evans was the only other one on board who can fly this thing. I damn well know you can't!" The tone in the pilot's voice told him that he'd called his bluff and going any further would gain him nothing. _Never give an order you know won't be obeyed. _It was one of the first things they taught you at the Academy. Quaritch put his pistol away. He turned to the Communications tech. "Signal Squadron Two to attack the primary target with whatever weapons they have left."

"Sir!" squawked Sergeant Jimanez. "Like I said before: all our communications are out! We can't talk to anyone!"

"God _damn_ it!" He looked out the shattered canopy and as he'd feared the entire surviving force of helicopters was turning to follow the Dragon.

[Scene Break]

Major Sam Halstead stiffened when an enormous concussion shook the forest. Everyone in the ground force halted as well. There was only one thing that could make a boom like that. The shuttle must have dropped its payload. But the direction of the noise… didn't seem quite right. "Ground forces, hold your position," he ordered. It was one of the few orders he'd given since the operation started, preferring to let the platoon leaders do their jobs rather than constantly look over their shoulders. "But keep your eyes open, the enemy appears to be rallying." He clicked to the command circuit. "Halstead to Papa Dragon, has primary target been destroyed? Please confirm." There was no answer. "Halstead to Captain Mitchell, please respond." Still nothing. Mitchell was in command of all the Sampsons—the choppers that would be retrieving most of the ground force. He was starting to get worried. He switched to the general circuit. "This is Major Halstead, any helicopter commander, please respond, over."

"This is Lieutenant Waldron, Squadron Three, Section One," came a response at last. "I read you Major."

"What's going on up there, Lieutenant?"

"Uh… it's a hell of a mess, sir. The bomb went off while it was still in the shuttle. Blew the whole thing to smithereens and took out half of the choppers escorting it."

"Where's Colonel Quaritch? I can't raise him." Good God, what if he was in command now?

"I have a visual on Papa Dragon," said Waldron "It's all smashed up and trailing smoke, but it's still airborne. I can't raise them either, sir. Their communications must be out. But they are heading back toward the base and we're all following."

Damnation. "Lieutenant, we're depending on you folks for extraction down here. Is Captain Mitchell a casualty?"

"Dunno, sir, but I can't raise him. It's a complete FUBAR up here right now."

"All right, then you relay this to every Sampson still in action: we'll rendezvous at the original LZ. The overhead is too thick where we are for you to get in. The original LZ. Understand?"

"Uh, yessir, I'll pass the word. But, sir, we can't lift out those AMP suits. Only the Shuttle and the Dragon can do that!"

"I know, I know. Just be waiting when we get there. Halstead out." He switched back to the circuit to the ground forces. "All right listen up! We are falling back for extraction. Back to our original LZ. We will fall back by squad, alternate squads on overwatch. You know the drill, people! Help the medics with the wounded and we are bringing out our dead, too. No one gets left behind! Let's move!"

They started retracing their steps, half the force keeping a close watch with their weapons ready while the other half moved. Fall back thirty meters and then the movers became the watchers and vice-versa. There was a brief pause when they came back to where six of the troopers had been killed by that one Na'vi madwoman. Thank God there weren't any more like her! He glanced over where her body lay crumpled. He jerked in surprise when he saw it move slightly. Still alive? With a 30mm round right through her? Damn, these people were tough! He was tempted to pump a few more shots into her, but decided against it. Halstead valued courage above all other things and she certainly had courage! She might live or die, but he wasn't about to slaughter her lying there. Instead, he loaded up his own dead and the retreat continued.

It wasn't long before the enemy realized they weren't being pursued anymore.

They had only covered about half the distance to the LZ when contacts started showing up on the IR and motion detectors all around them. The Na'vi had regained their nerve and unfortunately they had also learned their lesson: no mad charges into waiting guns this time. Now they were sneaking up close in ones and twos, firing their arrows and then slipping away before return fire could do anything except reduce the human's dwindling supply of ammo. Most of the arrows missed, but every now and then one would find its target and another man would go down. The medics had the antidote for the neurotoxin on the arrows, but there was no such thing as a minor wound from one of those huge projectiles. More and more people had to be detailed to carry the wounded and the dead. The AMP suits became their primary weapon and they were getting seriously short of rounds for their 30mm autocannons. AMP suit drivers were notoriously trigger-happy and whoever had designed the suits hadn't provided nearly enough ammo storage.

Halstead puffed along with his men, wishing that he'd learned to drive one of the AMP suits. _I'm too old for this sort of thing!_ He'd been on Pandora for eleven years after a full career in the Canadian Army. One more year and he'd be heading back to Earth and retire for good. _If I can make it back at all!_

"Sir?" said Lieutenant Gibson, the AMP suit commander. "I'm getting contacts from above. The blueskins are up in the trees."

Yeah, that had been inevitable. He was just thankful they hadn't done that from the start. "Three men in each squad keep a lookout above," he ordered. "Use suppressive fire where you have to, but don't waste ammo. Short, controlled bursts, people." Damn, he wished he still had those three Scorpions up top, but they had used up all their ordnance repelling the initial Na'vi assault and were off God knew where now.

They kept moving, passing through the grisly mounds of Na'vi dead from the first firefight. More arrows were coming in now. From all sides and from above, too. His troopers kept blasting away and would occasionally bring down one of the enemy that had dared to get too close. But more often the casualties were among the humans. He'd started out with twenty-five AMP suits and a hundred and fifty infantry. All the suits were still in action, but a third of the infantry was down.

"Major?" He looked and saw that Captain Johnson, his second in command, had come up beside him. "Sir, can… can we leave the dead? Almost all my men are tied up carrying wounded and dead. I've hardly got any guns still in action." Halstead grimaced, but nodded his head. Damn! He hated to do that, but Johnson was right. Trying to carry out the dead would only ensure that there were even more dead. The AMP suits could carry more, but they were their best defense right now. "All right, go ahead." Johnson started to turn but suddenly an arrow, coming from above, went right through him. The head burrowed into the ground and propped Johnson up so he didn't even fall. He just stood there, a glazed expression on his young face. His eyes went to Halstead and his hand came up as if reaching for help. But then the life flickered out of him and his arm fell and his eyes closed. The troops all around blazed away at something, but Halstead didn't look. He couldn't take his eyes off Johnson.

"Major! We gotta get the hell outta here!" shouted someone in his ear.

Shaking off his shock, Halstead commanded: "Leave the dead here. Pick up the pace! Another 800 meters and we're there. Move, people!" They moved, scrambling through brush, around trees and over fallen logs. Halstead was dripping with sweat and gasping for breath when he finally heard the welcome thrum of helicopter rotors from up ahead. A half-dozen troopers suddenly ran forward, despite the shouts of their NCOs to stay with the group. A minute later two of them came stumbling back. A minute after that they found the other four…

At last they broke out of the thicker forest into the cleared area where they'd made the initial landing. He breathed a huge sigh of relief when he saw a dozen Sampsons on the ground and four Scorpions hovering overhead. _Bless Lieutenant Waldron! _"Get aboard!" he shouted. "Careful with those wounded!"

"What about the suits?" demanded Lieutenant Gibson. The look on the man's face showed that he knew the answer before he'd asked the question and he wasn't happy about it.

"No choice, son. We can't take 'em and I don't want to leave them intact. The enemy might figure out how to use the 30s and we wouldn't want that, would we, eh? Get your pilots on the choppers and I'll have the flamethrowers light these up."

"We could fight our way through to the new mine site, sir! Maybe you could get another shuttle to extract us from there."

"It's forty klicks away, you'd never make it. How much ammo you have left, Lieutenant?"

"About a hundred rounds," he admitted grumpily.

"And I bet most of your boys have less than that. Once you were out, the Na'vi would just swarm you over. I'm sorry, Lieutenant, but your men are worth more than the suits."

Gibson swore but nodded and gave the order. There was a lot of grumbling from the drivers, but they obeyed. The AMP suits were all parked in a clump and their drivers scrambled into the helicopters, leaving the suit canopies open.

Halstead directed two of the flamethrower operators to set the suits on fire. They quickly did so and then backed away. Most of the Sampsons had already lifted off and he headed for one of the ones still waiting. The ammo in the suits was starting to cook off as he pulled himself aboard.

He turned for one last look…

…and an arrow went right through him.

The impact threw him backwards into the other troops in the chopper. There were shouts and gunfire, but all he could do was stare at the thick shaft protruding from his belly. Not much pain yet…

His gaze wandered out the doorway and he watched as the green forest turned to blue sky.

[Scene Break]

Jake opened his eyes to the familiar and hated confines of his link capsule. _Well, I'll never have to do this again,_ he thought bitterly. He pushed the capsule open, but just lay there for quite a while.

His avatar was dead, literally blown to atoms. The Toruk was dead. Neytiri was dead. He'd lost everything. The ache in his heart was so intense he wanted to just open the airlock doors and be done with it. But he wasn't suicidal by nature. If he had been he would have ended it back in the VA hospital and never made it to Pandora. Damn, he missed her. They'd had so little time together. It wasn't fair! _Life's not fair, haven't you figured that out yet, you skxawng?_ He hadn't cried since… since… he couldn't remember. But now he cried. A little. But then he suddenly remembered that Norm was probably here and he stopped and scrubbed away the tears and sat up. He leaned out and looked down the length of the shack, but Norm's link capsule was open and there was no one there. _Where's he gotten to?_

He dragged himself into his wheelchair and found a communicator. "Norm? Norm, come in." He had to try three times before he finally got a response.

"Jake? Is that you, Jake? Where are you?"

"At the shack."

"What are you doing… oh."

"Yeah. Where are you?"

"Uh, a few hundred meters south of you."

"Doing what?"

"Uh… looking for someone to kill, I guess."

"Finding anyone?"

"Not so far."

"Well, get your ass back here before some Na'vi decides you look like a human being."

"Okay. I'll be there shortly." Norm clicked off leaving Jake staring at the mass of junk cluttering the shack. They'd pulled everything of use out of the other module that they'd left at Site 26 and it was piled everywhere. He could hardly move around in his wheelchair. He rolled over to a window and looked out, but he couldn't see anything out of the ordinary. He was certain that he'd managed to destroy the shuttle, but how much damage had it done to the other helicopters? Had he taken out Quaritch? The fact that there were no gunships buzzing around and strafing the shack was a hopeful sign, but what was going on? There was no one left among the Na'vi who had a communicator. He was immobilized and cut off. Crippled.

He heard the airlock cycling and he turned as Norm came through the door, his exo-pack mask in one hand and an assault rifle in the other. "So, got your avatar killed, did you?" said Jake. "Well, me, too. Where's the slot to put a dollar in so we can play again?" There was no humor in his voice and Norm didn't even smile.

"Mine took a shot in the chest. It might still be alive. If we can get it back here we might be able to save it. What about yours?"

Jake shook his head. "Vaporized along with Toruk. I ran out of options and made a suicide attack on the shuttle. Worked, though."

"So _that's_ what that was! Shook the whole damn forest!" Norm paused and glanced at Jake's wheelchair and then back at his face. "I'm sorry, Jake."

"Neytiri's dead, Trudy, Tsu'tey, I'd give up both my arms, too, if it would bring them back."

"Damn," muttered Norm. He slumped down against a pile of duffle backs and rubbed his hand across his eyes.

"I'm sorry about Trudy, Norm. She was a hell of girl."

"Yeah… Yeah…" Norm hung his head for a while and tears dripped down his cheeks, but then he cleared his throat and looked up.

"So what the hell do we do now?"

"I wish I knew. I guess I'm not Toruk Macto anymore so I have no idea who's in charge of things now. Hell, only Mo'at and a few of the other Omaticaya even know we're on their side! Sure hope she's still alive…" _And who's gonna tell her that her daughter is dead?_ I wouldn't go wandering around outside, Norm, until we can make contact with someone who won't shoot on sight."

"I sense a certain lack of planning on our part…"

"Yeah, never really thought about something like this happening. Hell, I didn't expect any of us to survive."

"Really?"

"Did you?"

"Well, I was kinda hoping… but, no. So what do we do?"

"I guess we wait. Is there any food in this dump?"

[Scene Break]

Captain Harriet Kim was in the control room at Hell's Gate trying to make some sense of the reports that were coming in. She'd been left in command while Colonel Quaritch and nearly the entire RDA security force had gone off to try and pre-empt the massing Na'vi forces. The satellite images had shown the Na'vi—more and more and more or them as the word spread—heading for the stronghold up in the mountains. Unchecked, in a few weeks there could have been tens of thousands of them ready to attack Hell's Gate. Quaritch had been convinced that a lighting strike against the natives' holy tree would break their spirit and send them packing.

Kim was starting to suspect that Quaritch had been wrong.

The intense magnetic fields in the vicinity of the target, the so-called "Flux Vortex", made communications difficult so Kim had only been able to watch the flow of the battle through satellite imagery and the scattering of messages that managed to make it through. At first things seemed to be going well and the force pressed steadily toward the target. But then damaged helicopters began emerging from the Flux and reported that the Na'vi had attacked and managed to knock down a shocking number of the choppers. Still, the shuttle and the Dragon—easily recognizable on the satellite pics due to their huge size—had continued onward. They made it to just a kilometer away from the target. But then, a few minutes ago something had gone terribly wrong. The satellite has spotted an enormous Infra-red source and photos showed the whole area covered by an expanding cloud of smoke. Now the images were only showing the Dragon and a scattering of helicopters headed back towards Hell's Gate…

"But… but… where's the shuttle?" exclaimed Administrator Parker Selfridge. He was standing a few meters away trying to make sense of things just like everyone else.

"We should know in a few moments, sir," said Kim. Then she touched a control on the communications console. "Hell's Gate Tower to Papa Dragon, come in please. Hell's Gate Tower to Papa Dragon, come in please." No answer. Kim frowned, the ships were pulling clear of the flux and they ought to be able to…

"Hell's Gate Tower, this is Lieutenant Waldron, over." A voice crackled from the speaker.

"Lieutenant Waldron, this is Captain Kim, report your status, over."

"Our status isn't too good, Captain," replied Waldron. "The bomb on the shuttle went off prematurely—blew the whole thing to hell and took out a lot of the other ships. The Dragon is all beat up and smoking. Their communications must be out because we can't raise them. But they've turned back toward base and everyone who's left is following."

_My God…_ "What about the ground forces, Lieutenant?"

"They seem to be in good shape. I just talked to Major Halstead and he is falling back to the LZ for extraction. I'm collecting the Sampsons to pick him up. Gonna have to abandon the AMP suits, I'm afraid."

Kim breathed a sigh of relief. Halstead was her immediate superior and a man she greatly admired. She'd been very worried about him—and the platoon of her own company that was with the ground forces. "Very good, Lieutenant," she said. "Carry on with the extraction. Report in when it's complete."

"Roger, Hell's Gate. And you might want to alert your emergency crews: Papa Dragon ain't looking too good."

"Roger. And thank you, Hell's Gate Tower out." She clicked off and turned to alert the emergency personnel. As she did so a hand grabbed her arm. Selfridge. The administrator's face was white as a sheet of paper and his eyes were bulging.

"The shuttle! The shuttle is… _gone?_" he gasped.

"Apparently so, sir—along with about forty of our men who were aboard it. And a lot more on the other helicopters."

Selfridge's hands came up to the sides of his head and clutched his hair. Kim looked on in curiosity to see if he was actually going to rip handfuls out. "But… but… do you realize how much the shuttle _cost_?" His tone of voice and beseeching look on his face made it seem like he expected that Kim could make it all better if he just explained how important it was. "Billions! How am I going to explain this?"

"I don't know, sir," replied Kim honestly. She didn't know and she didn't care.

"But Quaritch promised that it wouldn't get a scratch! I never would have given him permission to use it if I'd know this was going to happen!"

Kim's eyebrows rose. As she recalled, the Colonel hadn't really _asked_ for permission to use the shuttle. He'd given reassurances to Selfridge but it was quite clear that Quaritch was going to take whatever he needed and Selfridge hadn't objected.

"You can take that up with Colonel Quaritch when he gets back, sir. Now if you'll excuse me I have work to do." She turned away and made sure that the fire-fighting equipment and rescue crews were all out on the runway and that medical teams were standing by. Selfridge drifted away, ranting to some of his staff which was fine by Kim as long as it kept him out of her hair.

About twenty minutes later some of the smaller helicopters began to arrive. Some were damaged and some had casualties aboard, but everyone's attention was on the big blip that represented the Dragon, Quaritch's huge command ship. "It's still losing altitude, ma'am," said the flight controller. "I don't know if it's gonna make it over the ridge." Messages from some of the Dragon's escorts were saying the same thing. Kim looked out the window at the forest-covered hills that nearly surrounded the Hell's Gate base. She gave orders for rescue teams to be ready to go out in helicopters if need be.

"It looks like they are swinging around to the west to come through that gap in the ridge," said the controller. "ETA about four minutes." Kim redirected her attention to the low spot in the hills. It seemed like a lot longer than four minutes, but then she spotted one large black shape surrounded by a bunch of smaller ones coming through the gap. They got larger rapidly and she could see that the Dragon was spewing out a thick cloud of black smoke. It was also dangerously close to the tree-tops.

"Pull up, dammit," growled the flight controller even though he had to know it would do no good. Repeated attempts to contact the Dragon had been unsuccessful.

Closer and closer, but lower and lower, too. Kim sucked in her breath when the huge four-engined vehicle clipped the last of the trees. The rear of the machine sagged down and she could hear the scream of the rotors trying to hold it up even from where she stood.

"They're coming in too hot!" cried the controller. "Slow down!"

But clearly the pilot was desperately trying to reach home before he ran out of altitude. The Dragon roared across the cleared area around the base, the rear of the fuselage only a dozen meters above the ground. Then the tail dipped even lower and collided with the perimeter fence, which it simply tore away in a chunk. They made it over the concrete runway but the tail slammed down with an impact Kim could feel. The Dragon swept forward and tilted to the left, its rear rotor dragging and twisting the machine's direction towards…

"Oh, crap!" hissed Kim.

They had cleared out a big space on the runway for the crippled Dragon, but now it wasn't heading that way! It skidded into three parked Scorpions, crushing them under it, and then spun around sideways and slammed to a halt against the base of Defense Tower Four. Immediately flames erupted from the rear engines.

"Fire crews go!" cried Kim, even though they were already in motion. Emergency teams converged on the Dragon and after a few tense moments she saw them leading or carrying away the ship's crew. The fire-fighters were spraying foam, but the fire was getting bigger rather than dying. "Evacuate Tower Four!" she commanded.

Several minutes went by, but it was a losing battle. When ammunition in the Dragon started to cook off, Kim ordered everyone back. They barely had a chance to obey before an explosion engulfed the machine and a moment later the stored missiles and ammunition in the tower went up, too, tearing it apart with a concussion that cracked some of the windows in the control tower. A huge column of smoke rose up into the sky. Eventually, the fire died down and she could see that both the tower and the Dragon were total losses.

"Captain Kim?" She tore her eyes away from the spectacle and saw that one of the non-coms at the communications station was looking at her.

"Yes?"

"They've got Colonel Quaritch in the infirmary, ma'am. He's got a bad concussion and the doctor won't release him. He's… uh… he's mad as a hornet and wants to see you right away."

Kim sighed and nodded. "I'll be right there." But as she turned to go the speaker came alive again.

"Lieutenant Waldron to Hell's Gate, come in." Kim stopped and responded.

"Go ahead, Lieutenant, what's your situation?"

"Extraction complete and we're headed home. ETA fifteen minutes. We've got a lot of wounded aboard and request that the medics stand ready." 

"Will do. Good job, Lieutenant. Is… is Major Halstead with you?"

"We've got him, Captain but…"

A chill went through her. "But what?"

"He's hurt real bad, Captain. They're not sure he's gonna make it."

[Scene Break]

Norm Spellman looked around the cluttered module and suddenly hated every cubic centimeter of it. He'd been stuck in here or its twin back at Site 26 for months on and off and he was sick of it. _You weren't sick of it when you were in bed with Trudy._ No, there had been some very delightful moments. On the days when both Jake and Grace had been driving their avatars they'd had all the privacy they could ask for. They'd even made love outside that one time, with the floating mountains watching them. Crazy, but Trudy was the adventurous sort. Damn she'd been fun and he missed her terribly. But now she was gone and the shack, filled as it was with junk, seemed so empty. He looked at Jake, sitting silently in his wheelchair by the window.

"Why'd we ever come here?"

Jake was silent for so long Norm wasn't sure he'd even heard him. But finally he said: "I don't know. It's sure not what I expected."

"What were you expecting?"

"Not sure. The RDA guys offered me a pile of money to take Tom's place and anything seemed better than staying in Detroit and getting drunk every night."

"Did you have any family other than Tom?" Norm had gotten to know Tom Sully pretty well during training, but he'd never said anything about his family. For some reason the topic had never come up with either Tom or Jake.

"My mother's been dead since we were twelve. A great aunt took us after that, but she's gone now, too. There's really no one else."

"What… what about your father?"

"He left right after we were born. Don't know where he is now."

"So the Omaticaya are your family now." Norm had meant that to sound encouraging, but he realized it was a mistake as soon as he'd said it.

"Yeah. Well, they were. Doubt that any of them are going to accept me looking like this." Jake turned his wheelchair to face him. "What about you? Any family back home?"

"Oh yeah, lots. My father's an engineer and my mother's a teacher. A younger brother and a sister. Lots of aunts uncles and cousins. Big family."

"So what the hell are you doing here?"

Norm shrugged. "Well, the money, of course. You know how tough things are back home and my salary mostly goes to my parents. But it was a huge opportunity to do some meaningful science and… well, it seemed like it would be a real adventure. Damn few adventures left on Earth these days."

"Well, you got your adventure, Norm. Like it?" He gave a lopsided grin.

"Some of it has been pretty cool… but like you said: this isn't quite what I was expecting. I didn't sign up to lead a native uprising!"

"So why did you?"

"I don't know… Trudy, I guess."

"Yeah," said Jake shaking his head. "The Na'vi all thought I was leading this thing, but Trudy was the one who struck the first blow. I couldn't believe it when she busted us out of detention. I mean I was mad as hell over what was going down, but she… she lead the way, gun out and ready to use it! Why? You were closer to her than anyone, Norm, why'd she do it?"

"I don't know. Most of the time she was… well, you know what she was like. She was just Trudy. But there were a few times when something… _dark_ showed through. Something dark and angry down inside her. I don't know what it was, but she was really pissed about what was being done to Pandora and the Na'vi. I guess we'll never know now," he ended sadly. They were both silent for a long time. Finally Norm stirred. "Anything going on out there?"

"I thought I saw a few Na'vi at the edge of the clearing about an hour ago," replied Jake. "But they went away again. Haven't seen anything since."

"I guess the fact that we're still alive is a good sign."

"Yeah, if Quaritch had won, he would have swept this whole area to find us. Maybe I did take him out and the rest gave up and went back to Hell's Gate."

"It's been what? Three hours? Four? Where is everyone?"

"Trying to pick up the pieces, I guess. I mean a lot of them would have been scattered to hell and gone during the fighting. Might be a while before anyone thinks to check on… okay, wait a second, someone's coming now." Norm went over next to Jake and peered out the window. Sure enough, some tall blue figures were emerging from the forest.

"Say, is that…?"

"Mo'at!" exclaimed Jake. "Thank God! Come on, let's get out there!" They grabbed their exo-packs and crowded into the air lock. By the time they emerged on the little outside porch there was a small crowd of Na'vi gathered. Mo'at was in front but there were several people pulling two wicker contraptions that had figures lying in them. Norm caught his breath when he recognized his avatar in one. But the other… the other…

"_Neytiri!"_ cried Jake. He started pushing himself forward and Norm had to grab him or he would have tumbled right off the porch. His wheelchair _did_ tumble off and Norm found himself sitting on his ass with Jake in his lap. "Neytiri!" Jake grabbed the handrail on the steps and dragged himself out of Norms grasp and down onto the ground. By this time Neytiri had been pulled right up to Jake and he lunged forward to grab onto the wicker carrier.

Norm stood up and watched silently. He'd seen Jake in a lot of different moods: happy, sad, angry, frustrated, despondent, but he'd never seen him come apart like this before. He bent over the Na'vi woman and wept. Then he realized why…

_My God! She's still alive!_

"I'll get the medkit!" he shouted and dashed back into the airlock. It seemed to take forever to cycle and then he had to toss away a pile of other items to get at the big case he wanted. He dragged it out and back into the lock. The medkit was a very sophisticated device, far, far more capable than the trauma kit they'd been forced to use on poor Grace. It was designed for use on the incredibly expensive and irreplaceable avatars, but would work just as well on a native Na'vi. It had a built-in robotic surgical unit and a wide range of drugs and sensors. If Neytiri was still alive there was a good chance this could keep her that way!

By the time he had the kit back through the airlock Jake had regained a measure of control, but his earlier sorrow had been replaced by a frantic worry. "Come on! Come on!" he shouted.

Norm set the kit down next to her and started to open it up. He had been given some rudimentary training with it, but fortunately, it was very nearly automatic. Once it had scanned Neytiri it could actually tell them what to do. He hit the activation switch and then for the first time really took a close look at Neytiri. There was a blood-soaked bandage wrapped around her torso just above her hips. She had some other cuts and scrapes, but nothing that looked that serious. As he watched, her eyes flickered open.

"Neytiri!' cried Jake, grabbing her hand.

"Jake?" her voice was scarcely a whisper.

"Yeah, it's me, Neytiri. Hang on! We're gonna fix you up!"

"Jake? Ma Jake?"

"Yes?"

"Jake… Jake, I cannot feel my legs…"

To Be Continued


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

"Doc, get this crap off me!" bellowed Miles Quaritch. "I've got work to do!"

"Colonel! Lie still!" said Doctor Sternberger, the chief medical officer. "You've taken a serious blow to the head and it needs to be treated! You walk out of here now and they'll be bringing you back in two hours—on a stretcher!"

"Hell, I've had worse than this plenty of times! Just give me a couple of aspirins and I'll be on my way."

"If that's true then you're lucky to be alive," said the doctor. He had some contraption hooked to Quaritch's head and he was peering intently at a computer screen. Two burly medical orderlies stood on either side of the bed Quaritch was lying on. "There are definite signs of an intercranial injury here, Colonel. Some bleeding, swelling of the brain, and increased pressure in your cerebrospinal fluid. You did hit your head pretty hard, didn't you?"

Quaritch remembered the impact when the shuttle blew and grudgingly admitted: "Yeah, it was a pretty good whack."

"And you weren't wearing a helmet, were you?"

"No."

The doctor sighed. "There are _reasons_ for the regulations, you know, Colonel."

"God damn it, Doc! I don't need to be lectured! Just get finished and let me out of here! We're in the middle of a war, in case you haven't noticed!" Quaritch hated medical people. They ordered you around and paid no attention to your rank or the situation.

"Oh, I've noticed, Colonel! I've got two dead boys in the other room and a dozen seriously wounded and I've been told that when the next batch of helicopters arrive I'll have twenty-five more coming in. So I'd appreciate it if you'd let me treat you so I can get ready for the others. Okay, Colonel?" He stood up from his computer and looked right at him.

_Bullseye. Damn him!_ There was no arguing with that. "Fine. Go ahead," he growled.

"The most dangerous thing about intercranial injuries, " said Sternberger as he started fiddling with his instruments, "is that often the patient feels nothing worse than a mild headache at first. But the pressure inside the skull builds and builds and eventually a critical point is reached. The damage to the brain can be severe, sometimes fatal. People have been known to collapse and die hours after a seemingly minor bump on the head." He placed himself in front of Quaritch with his hands on his hips. "Now, Colonel, I am going to make a bargain with you. I need to insert a catheter into your skull to drain the excess fluid and keep the pressure from building. If you'll let me do that and agree to stay here for observation I will allow you to remain in command and even conduct limited business—from this bed. You do that and I think I can have you out of here in two or three days."

"Three days!" snarled Quaritch. "Doc I don't…"

"If you _refuse_," interrupted Sternberger, "then I'm going to have to relieve you of duty altogether and turn command over to someone else while I treat you. I'm not bluffing, Colonel. Now which would you prefer?"

"God Damn it! I can't…"

"Colonel, you aren't going to do anyone any good if you collapse in the command center! Now please be reasonable!"

Quaritch clenched his fists. He'd had the whole trip back to Hell's Gate to think about things and there was simply no time to lose if they were going to salvage this situation. The failure to destroy the enemy's holy tree meant that they would continue to mass and with all the losses he had taken today his ability to interfere with them was severely reduced. But something had to be done or the situation could become untenable.

"Colonel?" Sternberger was still waiting.

"All right, dammit! Get on with it! And where's Captain Kim? I sent for her twenty minutes ago!"

"She's waiting outside. If you'll hold still, I can let her see you in just a few minutes." He approached, holding some evil-looking device. "Now, this won't hurt a bit…"

[Scene Break]

"Captain? Colonel Quaritch is waiting for you." Kim spun around and saw that Doctor Sternberger was coming through the door. He started to hurry away, but Kim stopped him.

"How is he?"

"Angry. Please try not to make him any angrier. He's agreed to stay here for a couple of days, but he'll still want to be running the show."

"I'm amazed you got him to agree to that."

"Wasn't easy. If you can keep him happy it would help."

"Not asking for much, are you?"

Sternberger snorted and turned to leave, but Kim stopped him again. "Please keep me informed about Major Halstead's condition, Doctor. He should be arriving any minute."

"As soon as I know anything, I'll see that you do."

"Thank you." She let the doctor escape and then took a breath and entered Quaritch's room. The Colonel was propped up on a bed, he had some sort of device attached to the base of his skull just behind his left ear. The whole left side of his face was a mass of bruises and cuts. His lip was split and he looked mad enough to chew nails. Kim stood before him and saluted. "Reporting as ordered, sir."

"What's the situation, Captain?" he growled.

"I've ordered a computer console delivered here so that you can…" began Kim.

"Just give me a summary, Captain," interrupted Quaritch. "You do know what's been going on don't you?"

"Yes sir." She took a breath. He wasn't going to like what she had to tell him. "The last of the helicopters carrying the ground troops are returning right now. Of the eighty-six helicopters that went out on the mission, Thirty-eight are either back or en route. About a dozen of those have been damaged to some degree. The rest… I have to assume that the rest have been lost." Quatritch frowned but didn't say anything. "We don't have an exact count on the losses among the ground forces, but the estimates are about thirty killed and a similar number wounded. All the AMP suits have been abandoned and destroyed."

"Destroyed?"

"Yes sir, to keep them out of enemy hands. There was no way to extract them."

"Shit," snarled Quaritch. "Halstead should have found some way to salvage them. Is he back yet?"

"Just coming in now, sir, but…" her voice faltered. "I'm told he's been very seriously wounded and may not survive."

"Damn. What about Captain Mitchell?"

"Presumed lost, sir. His ship didn't return."

"Kershaw?"

"No, sir."

"LeJuin? Mogabi? Kirkwood?"

"I'm sorry, sir."

Quaritch clenched his fist and grimaced. "Well! I guess that leaves you as second in command, doesn't it, Captain?"

"By seniority, yes, sir. But naturally, you are free to appoint anyone you want to…"

"Like who?" snorted Quaritch. "No, you've got the job—at least until Halstead's on his feet again. And since I'm _stuck_ here for a few days I'm going to be relying heavily on you to keep things running. Can I count on you, Captain?"

"Of course, sir. I'll do whatever's needed."

"Good. They call you 'Harri', don't they?"

"Yes sir." _My friends do…_

"So what else do you have to tell me, Harri?"

"Uh… well, I'm afraid that the Dragon is a total loss, sir. We couldn't control the fires. And when it blew it destroyed Defense Tower Four. No casualties from that, fortunately. When Dragon crashed it took out part of the perimeter fence, but I have crews repairing that right now. The helicopter ground crews are working to fix the damaged choppers and get the others refueled and re-armed, but that's going to take a while, especially since we lost about thirty of the ground crew who were on the shuttle. Oh, and Mr. Selfridge is pretty upset about the shuttle, sir. I'm sure he's going to want to talk to you."

Quaritch growled and just waved his had derisively.

"I've strengthened the normal perimeter patrol and put everyone on full alert."

"Good. What information do you have on enemy activities?"

"I'm afraid that the Na'vi war parties that we've been observing by satellite are still arriving, sir. Another five or six hundred just this morning. Another thousand are expected by nightfall. So far they are staying in the area around their stronghold, but two or three thousand more will arrive tomorrow if they keep moving the way they are." _So, by the end of today the enemy will be stronger than they were before the battle. And tomorrow they'll be twice as strong. And the day after that? We've been decimated and we can't replace our losses at all._

"So what is your estimate of the situation, Captain?"

_You're asking me?_ "Uh, well, sir, in the light of today's… reverse, I would have to think that our offensive options are rather limited. But our defenses here are very strong. If the enemy attempts to attack us here we can expect to repulse them with very heavy losses. That might convince them to agree to some sort of peace settlement. If they refuse then, well, sir, considering our inability to reinforce or resupply, our long-term prospects aren't very good."

"Fortune favors the bold, Captain," said Quaritch. "If we just sit here and give the enemy the initiative then your estimate is probably right. But I have no intention of just sitting here!"

[Scene Break]

Jake looked at Neytiri's inert form, partially encased in the medkit, and tried to hold himself together. The devastating sorrow when he thought she was dead had been replaced by an impossible elation when he found her alive, but that in turn had been crowded out by the fear—the terror—that he might lose her again. Twice in one day! It was too much to bear. He'd always thought himself stronger than this. He'd lost things before: his mother, his brother, his legs… _But I never loved anything this much before!_ It seemed you couldn't give your heart to someone and still keep it hidden away safe. His emotions had been twisted back and forth so much they were ready to break like an overstrained piece of metal. He sat shuddering in his wheelchair.

"Jake, if I'm reading this right, then things are looking better," said Norm, who was studying the medkit's display screen. "Her vital signs have stabilized and the auto-surgeon is working to repair the damage to her internal organs."

"It's actually operating on her?"

"Yeah, it's got a full set of robotic 'hands' and surgical instruments in there."

"That's pretty amazing," said Jake, trying not to think that her life was in the hands of some unfeeling machine.

"Almost all surgeries—on humans, I mean—are done by robots these days, Jake."

"Yeah, I guess I knew that, but I was always out when they were working on me, so I never really noticed. I sure hope that thing knows what it's doing."

"It does, but Jake… Jake, it's also telling me that it can't fix her spine."

"Oh no…" _Not her! Not like me!_

"Jake! It isn't saying the spine _can't_ be fixed! It's just saying that this machine isn't capable of that sort of repair. We need to get her to a better facility."

"Like _where_?"

"Well, Hell's Gate has a full avatar surgical facility. Max was telling me that Cynthia Sundstrom is an expert in Na'vi physiology and a trained surgeon. She could probably do it."

"Hell's Gate isn't exactly available to us right now, Norm!"

"Not right now, but it might be if we can ever end this war! You making any progress on that front?"

Jake looked to where Mo'at was squatting next to her daughter. Neither he nor she had said anything about the battle or its aftermath. But he couldn't ignore it any longer. Even if that machine could save Neytiri's life, all their lives were still in danger. "Mo'at? Mo'at, what's happening out there?" Other Na'vi had been coming and going for hours and whispering in her ear.

The Omaticaya's tsahik stirred and looked back at him. "The Sky P… the _enemy_ has retreated to their fortress. Eywa has granted us a great victory this day, Jakesully. But only at a great cost." She looked to Neytiri.

"So what happens now?"

"The other clans continue to pour in. They await the command of Toruk Macto."

"What? But… but Toruk Macto is dead!"

"I see you here before me."

"Do you? Do you? Well look at me!" cried Jake. "The Toruk is dead! My dreamwalker is dead! How can I lead the clans like this?"

"Eywa chose you. Of this I have no doubt. And Eywa looks beyond the flesh. She judged your spirit worthy of this task. It matters not what flesh your spirit wears. You are still Toruk Macto." She stared right into his eyes and didn't blink.

Jake's mouth hung open. He was totally flummoxed. "But are all the newcomers going to believe that? They never got the chance to see me or Toruk! All they're gonna see is this tiny, _wrecked_ Sky Person in a wheelchair! They'll never accept it!"

Mo'at nodded. "Many will doubt. You must convince them otherwise."

"Me! How can I do that?"

"I do not know," said Mo'at. "But unless you do, all that has been won may yet be lost."

[Scene Break]

Norm Spellman watched an expression of panic wash over Jake's face and wished there was something he could do to help. Jake looked at him. "Norm, how can I do this?" he hissed.

"Jake… I, uh… Jake, when you were a Marine, did you ever see the general commanding your division?"

"I think I saw him once at a parade, but no, not usually."

"And I'm guessing you never saw the top Marine general or the Secretary of Defense or the President either?"

"No."

"And yet you obeyed all the orders that came all the way from the top down to your platoon, right?"

"Yeah…"

"Well, there you go: Delegate, buddy! Delegate!"

"You mean not tell the newcomers? Try to lead through others?" His voice was skeptical, but Norm could see that the idea had taken him by surprise.

"It might work. I sure haven't got any other ideas."

Jake sat there frowning for quite a while. Then he looked around and beckoned to one of the Na'vi warriors who had been watching from a distance. "Tarro," he said in Na'vi, "Come over here." The man looked surprised and a little nervous, but he came forward. Most of the others, about two dozen, came closer as well. Jake sat up in his chair and stared right at Tarro.

"Who am I?" he demanded.

Now Tarro looked really nervous. He looked back at the others, then at Mo'at, and then at Jake and shuffled his feet.

"_Who am I?"_ snapped Jake again.

"You are… Tsahik Mo'at has told us that you are the Dreamwalker who is both Jakesully and Toruk Macto."

"Do you believe that?"

"I… why would the tsahik lie?"

"That's not what I asked!" Jake was snarling like a drill sergeant. "Do _you_ believe that?"

"It is… difficult," said Tarro. "But I can see the resemblance between you and Toruk Macto, strange though it seems. And you talk like him, too. Yes… yes, I believe that it is true."

"Will you follow me into battle again? Will you obey my commands?"

Tarro was silent and looked down at the ground for a moment. "We have talked of this. We witnessed Toruk Macto's bravery. How he led us against the foe. Some of us saw how he sacrificed himself to destroy the great enemy machine. But… some of us said that if Toruk Macto was just a shell containing the spirit of another and if this other would be unhurt no matter what happened to Toruk Macto then was it truly courage we saw?" Jake flinched and Norm tensed. _Damn, that's true, isn't it? Is it still brave to face danger when the real you can't be killed?_ But then Tarro went on:

"Some of us spoke these thoughts. I wondered myself. But now… now that we truly see you, see what you have… given up to win this victory for us…." He drew himself up and touched his forehead. "You are Toruk Macto! Eywa's champion! Lead us and we will follow! Command us and we will obey!"

The others raised their fists and cried: "Command us!"

Norm was amazed to see yet another Jake he'd never seen before. The man clamped shut his mouth and blinked back tears. The phrase that came to Norm's mind was: 'bursting with pride' and Jake truly looked ready to burst. It took him a minute or more to regain enough control to dare speak.

"It… it is an honor to command warriors like you. You shall be my legs, my strong arms. Together we will drive away the Sky People and reclaim this world for the People and for Eywa. We will fight them. We will fight them every day until they realize that they cannot win, that they cannot conquer us!" The warriors gave a shout. "So, the first thing I want you to do is return to where the war hosts are camped. Send any of the Omaticaya you can find here to talk with me. Tell any of the others who still have the strength to search the battlefield. Find all of our people and bring them back to the Tree of Souls. Tend to the wounded and bury the dead. Also, search the enemy dead and their war machines. Any Sky People weapon or device that is not smashed or burned should be brought here. Now go, time is short." Tarro and the others all touched their foreheads and then hurried away. Some were talking excitedly. Jake looked back at Norm.

"How'd I do?"

"Good. Damn good," said Norm. "Winston Churchill himself couldn't have done better."

"Who?"

"Forget it."

"Jakesully," said Mo'at. There was a strange gleam in her eye. "Eywa surely chose well."

Jake seemed nearly as taken back as a few moments earlier, but a faint beeping from the medkit drew all of their attentions. Norm looked at the display. "Okay, the surgery is finished and we can take Neytiri out of the unit. There's a long list of instructions for her treatment, too." He touched a button and the machine opened up. He was amazed to see that where the ugly hole in her abdomen had been there was now just a faint pink mark. She seemed to be breathing much easier, too. Jake, face full of worry again, came over and watched while Mo'at and Norm carefully lifted her out and laid her on a pile of cushions and blankets he'd found in the shack. She was asleep and the drug would keep her that way for a while yet. Jake pulled himself out of his wheelchair and sat next to her, holding her hand. She seemed terribly weak and vulnerable compared to the dynamo she usually was.

"Your avatar next, Norm," said Jake. Norm nodded and he and Mo'at moved his avatar into the machine. Its wound was pretty serious, too, although not as bad as Neytiri's. Of course there had been no question about who was going to get treated first. Norm had bandaged and medicated his avatar following instructions from the medkit, but he was glad to see it was still alive. With luck, the medkit could fix it up good as new.

"The Omaticaya are going to be my arms and legs, Norm," said Jake once the medkit had gone to work. "But I think you and Mo'at are going to have to be my eyes and ears and mouth most of the time."

"Yeah, that probably makes sense," replied Norm, one eye on the medkit read-out. "But what's our plan of action? I mean we've won a battle but I'm guessing that the war isn't over yet."

"I can't believe that they'll give up if Quaritch is still alive. Mo'at, are you sure that the large Sky People machine, the large green one, wasn't destroyed?"

"The warriors said that they saw it going away," replied the tsahik. "There was smoke pouring from it, but it still flew away."

Jake nodded grimly. "Then we have to assume he's alive and I don't see him giving up. Still, we've hurt him badly and we are getting stronger while he can only get weaker. For the time being I think we just get ourselves organized and see what the enemy does. We're not nearly strong enough yet to attack Hell's Gate." He glanced down at Neytiri. "I don't want to attack the base at all if we can avoid it."

Norm nodded. The only hope that Neytiri could ever walk again was inside that base and Jake wouldn't want to risk having that chance destroyed. "So, we wait for them to make the next move?"

"Yeah, I think so."

[Scene Break]

Sam Halstead opened his eyes and was relieved to see neither green forest, nor blue sky. The pale beige walls of the Hell's Gate infirmary weren't beautiful, but they were most welcome. Even more welcome was the face of Harri Kim bending over him with a worried smile on her face. "How are you feeling, sir?" she asked.

"Sore. Tired. Kind of numb. I'm guessing I'll be on a liquid diet for a while, too, eh?" He looked down at his bandaged belly.

"Yes, sir, so they tell me. Your guts were torn up pretty bad by that arrow. They've managed to patch you up, but you're going to have to stay off your feet for at least a couple of weeks."

Halstead nodded. It could be a lot worse. "So what's the situation? Quaritch make it back?"

"Yes, sir. He was a bit banged up, too and will be restricted to the infirmary for another day or two. But he's retained command."

"I don't envy his doctor or nurses." He tried to chuckle, but a very odd feeling from deep down cut it short. Then he frowned. "What were our losses, Harri. Don't try to sugar-coat it."

"Pretty bad, sir. Forty-eight of the helicopters were lost, along with the Dragon. All total losses. A hundred and sixteen of the helicopter crews, forty more on the shuttle and forty-two dead and twenty-seven wounded from the ground forces. The Dragon crash landed here at the base and took out Defense Tower Four."

"Plus the twenty-five AMP suits I had to torch. Not a very good situation, Harri. Are the Na'vi continuing to mass?"

"Yes, sir. They are already stronger than they were before the battle and it is only going to get worse."

"What about our officers? Who's left?"

"I'm second in command until you're back on your feet, sir." Halstead raised an eyebrow. Almost the whole middle-echelon of the officer corps had been wiped out. Not good.

"Well, it could be worse. Imagine if I'd left Johnson here and took you along like you wanted, eh, Harri? So, what is Quaritch planning to do now?"

"He's not giving up, sir. And he says that he has no intention of giving up the initiative. I don't know what that means. Mr. Selfridge has flatly refused to allow him to use another one of the shuttles, so our offensive capabilities are limited to our remaining helicopters."

"I'm surprised that Selfridge had the guts to stand up to him," said Halstead.

"Well, I was the intermediary, sir, so he didn't actually have to face the Colonel down. And since all the remaining shuttles are currently in orbit there's no way we can use them unless they come down."

Halstead was very tired and it was hard to think. "Uh… what day is it, Harri?"

"Tuesday morning, sir, the day after the battle." She smiled.

"And you don't know what Quaritch has planned?"

"No, sir. But he's called a meeting for later today. The remaining helicopters will mostly be repaired and rearmed by tonight, so he may have some thoughts of using them tomorrow."

Halstead closed his eyes. "I think I need a nap. Try to keep me informed as best you can, Harri."

"Will do, sir. You just take it easy and get well."

[Scene Break]

Miles Quaritch looked around his room in the infirmary and frowned. It was meant for two people but they had removed the other bed to make enough room for his 'headquarters'. He felt a twinge of guilt about that since he knew that the other parts of the infirmary were filled to overflowing with wounded. He was angry about being stuck here, but he also knew the doctor had been right: head injuries were nothing to fool around with and a few dizzy spells over the last few hours had only emphasized that. He just hated letting any of his people see him vulnerable like this. The room was just large enough to fit in all his officers—all his remaining officers. They stood or sat all around him now, looking at him in anticipation.

"Okay, we're all here," he said. "First I want to reiterate the changes to the command structure I've made. Captain Kim is now my executive officer until such time as Major Halstead can return to duty. She's also in command of the infantry elements. Lieutenant Waldron, I'm brevetting you captain and you will command the second air battalion. Harris, you've got the first. Make whatever adjustments to your TO you think necessary and report them to me. Clear?

A chorus of _yes sirs_ came in reply.

"Harri, I'm relieving you of your intelligence duties and reassigning them to Lieutenant Asoka. You've got enough on your plate right now. Get with him after this and bring him up to speed."

"Yes, sir," said Harri Kim. He nodded at her. He'd had his doubts about Kim, but she was shaping up fine. A lot of officers would have crumbled under the sudden load, but she seemed able to handle it. He looked around again and took a deep breath.

"Okay, people, I don't hafta tell you the score, we all know it: the enemy is gettin' stronger and we're not. If we just sit here on our asses, there'll eventually be enough of them to overrun us. So we can't just sit here. We have to attack… and soon. Harri, when will the repairs and re-arming of the choppers be done?"

"We'll have sixteen Scorpions and Seventeen Sampsons ready by 1900 tonight, sir. The rest are going to need more extensive repairs."

"All right, that'll be enough. The enemy thinks they stopped us yesterday and they probably expect us to give up. Well, we are gonna show them just how wrong they are! We are gonna hit them again—tonight!"

"A night operation, sir?" asked Kim in surprise.

"Why not? They won't expect it and won't be prepared to defend against it."

"What will the target be, sir?"

"Multiple targets, Captain. We'll send a sufficient force to destroy that holy tree of theirs, I'm thinkin' four Scorpions ought to do the trick. The rest are gonna hit all the enemy encampments around the tree. We can pinpoint the heaviest concentrations with orbital images and then just blanket the areas with missiles. We ought to be able to kill a few thousand of them. Between that and the loss of the tree we should seriously disrupt them, maybe rout them completely. And even if it doesn't we can always come back the next night and the next. Keep hammerin' them until they give up."

"Navigation in the Flux Vortex is going to be difficult, sir, especially at night," said Lieutenant Waldron.

"I'm aware of that, Lieutenant. But you'll have night vision goggles and it never gets truly dark at night anyway. We'll set up a precise flight plan for the Scorpions attackin' the tree and we'll send them in first. The flames from that will act as a beacon for the other ships and they'll find their targets based on bearing and distance from the tree."

"Okay, sir, sounds good."

"Sir?" It was Lieutenant Asoka. "In addition to now being the S2, I'm still the logistics officer and I need to tell you that if we are forced to wage an extended campaign, then a series of bombardments such as you are suggesting will seriously deplete our stocks of missiles. We used up a hell of a lot yesterday and quite a few when we brought down the native's tree house. Five or six raids will leave us in very short supply."

"I doubt very much it will require that many strikes, Lieutenant," replied Quaritch. "Once the enemy sees we can hurt them at will and they can't hurt us back they'll lose heart and leave the area."

"Yes ,sir."

"All right, I want to launch the strike right after midnight. That gives us about ten hours to get it set up. Harri, you and Asoka draw up a plan of attack for my review. The rest of you get your commands sorted out and ready to go. We'll meet again at 2200 to finalize things. Dismissed."

[Scene Break]

Harriet Kim led Lieutenant Asoka back to the main Hell's Gate control center. "So what do you think of all this, Suki?" she asked him.

"It's a mess, Harri," he replied. The two of them were good friends and she was glad to be able to work with him. "The Old Man is sure putting a lot faith onto the idea that destroying that holy tree is going to break the Na'vi's morale. Does he have any actual intel to base that on?"

"Just some statements that Jake Sully and Grace Augustine had made."

"Both proven traitors. Wow, that fills me with confidence. What if it just makes them mad—madder—instead?"

"I don't know." Kim had been worrying about the same thing.

"I mean, if you destroyed the most holy site of some human religion what do you think would happen?"

"It's been done," replied Kim, "and it drove the people crazy with rage rather than demoralizing them."

They both dropped the matter as they entered the control room. The situation at Hell's Gate was unlike anything Kim had faced in the real military. Since Security Operations was just a support service for the unobtainium mining and processing operations it had to share the control room with all the civilian workers. Most of those workers were nervous and worried about the deteriorating military situation and Kim had to sooth them for several minutes and then shoo a few of them away from the main holographic display before she and Asoka could get to work. Normally that wouldn't have been a problem since the security operations were mostly routine, but now with Hell's Gate on a war footing it was more than a bit awkward having to work right there with everyone watching. But they needed the big display and Selfridge was insisting that the mine stay in operation, so there really wasn't any choice.

They called up the satellite images of the enemy stronghold and started to plot out targets and the proper approach vectors. The Na'vi camps were springing up all around what they called the Tree of Souls. Under normal circumstances it would have been simple to set up the attack, but unfortunately, the area was smack in the middle of the Halleluiah Mountains which was one of the most amazing natural wonders yet discovered. Huge blocks of stones, some as big as small mountains floated in the air, the superconducting unobtainium in them held up by the planet's intense magnetic field. They made an obstacle course that the helicopters would have to thread their way through to get in and out.

"Y'know, Harri," said Asoka, "It occurs to me that with all of the bioluminescence that the native life gives off, the pilots' night vision equipment might not be as useful as the Colonel thinks. I mean there will be light coming in from all over the place and it might be hard to sort it all, out."

"I know," replied Kim. "A number of the pilots who've been out there at night have mentioned that. Some of them say it's actually easier with the night vision gear switched off. This isn't going to be easy."

They continued to work and after several hours they had what appeared to be a workable plan. As they copied it to a portable computer pad to show to the Colonel, Kim said: "By the way, Suki, now that you're the Intelligence Officer, when you have a free moment…"

Asoka snorted.

"Yeah, yeah, I know," continued Kim. "But if you can find the time, I'd like you to set someone to checking over the security camera logs. I've got this feeling that when Chacon busted Augustine and Sully and Spellman out of detention that she might not have been working alone. If she had help I want to know who it was."

"Okay, I'll try to get to that, too—when I have time."

"Thanks, Suki."

[Scene Break]

Max Patel stared at the miniature holographic display on the computer in his office. It showed the area around the Tree of Souls with a lot of colored lines denoting the proposed attack routes for the RDA helicopters. He wondered what Quaritch would think if he knew that Max had hacked into the software controlling the big holo-display in the control room and now had a copy of their battle plans? He tried _not_ to think about what Quaritch might _do_ if he found out…

He still couldn't believe that he was doing this. He'd been incredibly angry about what the RDA had done to the Omaticaya and helping Trudy Chacon break Grace and the others out of detention had been an almost instinctive reaction. After all, it wasn't like Grace or Jake or Norm had actually done anything _illegal_ at that point. Quaritch had no justification for locking them up! So when Trudy came to him for help, he'd scarcely hesitated. Trudy had been so intense and driven it had been downright scary. He didn't know what was pushing her, but he felt like he'd been sucked into a whirlwind. He hadn't even stopped to think about the _consequences_ of the break-out.

The first, and still the most shocking, consequence was that Grace had been killed—by Quaritch himself! It still seemed impossible. Grace had been an institution at Hell's Gate and despite her prickly personality, Max had admired her greatly. She was a true genius and it had been a privilege working for her. And she had been on the verge of one of the great scientific discoveries of the age. The planetary network that apparently existed on Pandora was unlike anything ever discovered. For her to be killed before she could complete her work—or take credit for it—had been a crime. And then when Quaritch had decided to win his war by blowing the heart out of that network, well, there was no way Max could stand aside and do nothing.

The memory of the rage he'd felt at the time still frightened him. He'd never committed a violent act in his life, but he was ready to. He'd warned Jake of the coming attack and the resulting battle had seen over two hundred of his fellow humans killed. It was shocking, horrifying, but he didn't regret it. He'd betrayed his people, but he'd stayed true to his principles. There really hadn't been any choice at all. He was a scientist and he knew that fifty or a hundred years from now they would come up with a way to synthesize unobtainium back on Earth—if they even still used the stuff. The mines on Pandora would not be needed anymore—but the damage would still have been done. The planet would be ruined and the Na'vi culture destroyed. No, he had no doubt about what he was doing…

He gasped when he heard his door open and he quickly banished the battle plan from his display. But he sighed in relief when he saw that it was Cynthia Sundstrom. Cynthia was his chief co-conspirator. She was solidly in his camp and he trusted her completely. In fact, there was a resistance movement growing among the scientists and avatar drivers, although Max had not let most of them know about his own activities. Cynthia came in and sat down next to him. "Did you get it?" she asked.

"Yup," he said re-activating the holo-display. "It looks like they are sending all the helicopters in on a lightning strike to take out the Tree of Souls and do as much other damage as they can. Unfortunately, this doesn't tell us when it will be."

"It's tonight!" said Cynthia.

"Really? How do you know?"

"Doris told me. She's been flirting with one of the pilots and he was bitching just a little while ago about having to fly tonight. A lot of the other pilots seem to be getting ready for something, too."

"Quite a little espionage network we've got here," said Max. "But tonight? Damn, I wasn't expecting that."

"I'm guessing that's the whole point," said Cynthia. "Take them by surprise."

"Yeah," said Max, nodding. "We have to warn Jake."

To Be Continued


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Neytiri opened her eyes, but at first all she could see was a green blur. She blinked and blinked and little by little the image became clearer. Green leaves overhead with rays of the noon sun leaking through. She felt so strange. So tired! She could barely turn her head and her arms felt as heavy as stones. Her legs…

She couldn't move her legs at all. Couldn't even feel them.

The memory of some awful dream returned to her. One of the huge Sky People machines was slowly coming toward her, but try as she might she couldn't get out of its way. Her legs wouldn't work! It got closer and closer…

"Jake!" she gasped. 

A moment later she sensed someone behind her. She tried to turn her head to see who it was, but hands held her head in place. "Calm! Calm, Neytiri." She relaxed when she heard Jake's voice. Or she thought it was Jake's voice. It sounded… strange.

"Jake, let me see you."

"In a moment, love. But first I need to tell you some things. You know that I am a dreamwalker, like Grace?"

"Of course. Grace explained that all to me years ago, when I first came to her school. She even showed us pictures explaining how it works—not that I understood all of it. And you and I talked about it, too. Jake, what's wrong?" It was so hard to concentrate! What was wrong with her? What was wrong with Jake? "Why can't I see you?" She was growing frightened.

"Neytiri, during the battle, my dreamwalker form was killed, destroyed. All I have left is my Sky Person body."

Neytiri froze, trying to grasp his words. The Jake she knew was… gone? Those strong arms, those eyes, those lips… gone? His _queue_, gone? They could never make the tsahaylu again? Her heart was fluttering in her chest, panic gripped her by the throat.

"I'm sorry," said Jake. "I didn't want to shock you, Neytiri. You've been badly hurt yourself and you need to rest."

"Let me see you!" she cried, desperately trying to turn her head.

"All right. All right, calm down. Here I am." He let go of her head and she saw a shape to her right sowly moving around beside her. She turned her head to look…

A Sky Person sat next to her.

She'd seen Sky People before, of course, but never this close—well, faint memories of her last fight were beginning to surface and she supposed she'd been even closer to the ones she'd killed…

But this was Jake? The real Jake? This person's hair was dark like her Jake's, but very, very short, just a thin layer covering parts of his head. But there was also a mass of tiny hairs sprouting all over his lower face, his cheeks, his jaw, his throat. A thicker patch of hair was over each eye. The eyes were dark and much too small. The nose was oddly shaped and also too small. The ears were rounded off and lay flat against the sides of his head. His mouth was the most normal thing about him.

And yet… and yet… this creature looked like Jake!

"Jake?" She lifted a stone-heavy arm and he grasped it in his hands.

"Yes, it's me," he replied and then, after a hesitation. "I see you."

She lay there and stared at him for a long time, then finally she pulled her hand free and gently stroked his face. The tiny hairs tickled her hand like the skin of a _hritna_. "I see you," she whispered.

He smiled and seemed to blink back tears. "Everything is going to be all right."

"Why can't I feel my legs, Jake?"

His smile faded and he looked away for a moment. "You were shot. You were shot and the bullet went through your backbone and broke it. You won't be able to feel your legs or walk until we can fix it."

A chill went through her at the thought of being a cripple. Unable to do… anything! "When? When can you fix it?"

"We need to capture the Sky People fortress. The tools we need are there."

Neytiri's head was spinning. Too much! Too many things at once! "The… the Sky People fortress? But the battle…? What happened? I don't…"

"We won the battle, Neytiri. We drove away the Sky People attack, hurt them badly. The People continue to come to our aid and soon we'll be strong enough to attack. But for right now you need to rest." He stroked her arm and then spoke in English. "I love you, girl. Just hang in there for a while, okay?"

"But, Jake…" something hissed next to her head and she felt a strange tingling on her throat and then everything was fading away again.

[Scene Break]

Jake watched as the drug took effect and Neytiri's eyes closed. That hadn't been as bad as he'd feared, but it was bad enough. He looked to where Mo'at had been watching. She had a sad expression on her face, but nodded to him and then walked away. What was he going to do? He would do everything he could to see that she regained the use of her legs, but then what? What possible future could they have together? There were times when he felt that he could be happy just staring at Neytiri's incredible beauty for hours on end, but that was hardly fair to her. She deserved a mate who could hold her, love her, give her children. He couldn't do any of those things anymore. No, she needed one of her own kind and he could never be that again. "Sleep, my love," he whispered. "Sleep and dream of someone else."

He was dragging himself back into his wheelchair when Norm came busting out of the shack. "Jake! Jake! We just got a message from Max!" he shouted. "We got big trouble!"

Jake instantly traded one set of worries for another. "What? What's happening?" Norm was carrying a computer pad and he skidded to halt next to Jake.

"Quaritch is launching another attack—tonight!"

"Tonight?"

"Yeah, they are leaving Hell's Gate right after midnight and coming here to hit us. Look!" Norm activated the computer and the holo-display. A tiny image of Max Patel appeared.

"Hey guys," said Max. "I hope you are all okay. You gave Quaritch a real bloody nose the other day, but he hasn't given up. He's launching all the helicopters against you tonight. Look, I can't talk long, so I'm just going to send you their battle plan. Good luck! Talk to you again later." Max vanished and was replaced by a holographic model of the area around the Tree of Souls. Lots of little colored arrows criss-crossed the display with tiny notations next to them.

"I wonder where he got this?" said Norm. He stared closer. "Yow, can you understand it?"

"Yeah, it's standard military symbols and nomenclature," said Jake. "But it's so damn small on this display…" He fiddled with the controls and started zooming in on one section at a time. "Norm, go round up the Na'vi and have them come here while I study this."

"Right!" Norm trotted off. The Omaticaya had moved their camp so that it surrounded the shack. They were acting as his guards, his messengers, and a buffer between him and the rest of the clans. It wasn't long before Norm was back with over a hundred warriors. They stood around in silence while he continued to look at the display. Finally he looked up.

"So what's the story, boss?" asked Norm in English.

"If I'm reading this right, Quaritch is sending in all his remaining helicopters—thirty three of them—to try and destroy the Tree of Souls with missile fire and shoot up as many of the camps as he can."

"So what do we do?"

"Well, the Flux gives us a big advantage again because it screws up their navigational instruments to the point that they are going to have to fly precise pre-determined flight plans. Thanks to Max we know exactly how they are going to come."

"So we can ambush them, right?" asked Norm excitedly.

"We are certainly going to try." He turned to the waiting warriors. "The enemy will attack tonight, thinking to catch us asleep. But we will be waiting for him!" The warriors gave an eager whoop.

"Now here's what we're going to do…"

[Scene Break]

Captain Harriet Kim watched the last of the navigation lights on the helicopters disappear into the night. She was in the command center and they had chased all the civilians out of it for this and the place now seemed practically deserted with only a handful of security personnel manning the posts. Colonel Quaritch was not here and she knew he was furious about it. The doctor had refused to permit it, stating that the excitement could raise his blood pressure to dangerous levels. Considering how high his blood pressure must have gotten when the doctor told him that it seemed like a pointless precaution to Kim. Still, she didn't regret Quaritch's absence, he always filled the room with tension. _He fills me with tension anyway!_

But, despite his absence, the room was tense enough. She touched an intercom button. "Colonel? The strike force is away."

"Good," replied Quaritch. "Keep me informed."

"Will do, sir. They should begin their attacks in just under an hour." She turned to the main holo-display. It was zoomed out to show the entire region between Hell's Gate and the targets. Tiny colored dots slowly crept across the electronic landscape. They were splitting up into more than a dozen separate groups that were angling away from each other. The attacks would come in from all directions with the faster Scorpions swinging all the way around to the opposite side of the Halleluiah Mountains to attack the enemy from the rear. The primary attack, the four Scorpions assigned to hit the Tree of Souls, would strike a few minutes ahead of the others. Hopefully this would create a reference beacon the others could use to place their attacks, but not give the enemy enough time to disperse. With luck they could hurt the enemy badly tonight. But would it be enough to break their spirit? She had her doubts. The orbital scans were showing that the Na'vi mobilization was continuing to spread, right across the whole continent. More than fifty thousand Na'vi were en route to join the five thousand who were already here, and that number could easily double in the next few days. _We've seriously underestimated these people…_

She stared at the display for a while and then strolled around the command center, trying to hide her nervousness. But no one else had anything to do, either, and they all seemed pretty nervous. Except Suki Asoka, he was bent over a terminal working on something. She went over to him. "Whatcha doing, Suki?"

"Oh," he said looking up. "I was following up on what you'd asked about the security records during the breakout."

"Finding anything?"

"Maybe."

"What?"

"I don't want to jump to any conclusions until I have everything checked out, Harri. I still need to do a little more work on this and then I'll get back to you."

"Okay." She resumed her pacing while the minutes dragged away and eventually ended up back at the big display. The little dots got closer and closer to the target and she zoomed in on the target area. A mass of red dots surrounded the Tree of Souls. Hopefully the dots represented a sleeping enemy.

_Not long now…_

[Scene Break]

Norm Spellman looked nervously at the plastic tube in his hands. _I sure hope this thing works!_

"You okay, Norm?" asked Jake. His friend was sitting in his wheelchair, cradling another plastic tube just like his and both of them were on a small hillock about a half a kilometer north of the Tree of Souls. A few dozen Omaticaya warriors surrounded them. It was a beautiful Pandora night with Polyphemus huge and round, filling a quarter of the sky, partially framed by some of the stone arches that surrounded the Tree of Souls. The plants and insects all about them were aglow with pinks and greens and blues. They seemed unaware that all Hell was going to break loose very shortly.

"A little winded," he replied. "That was quite a run."

"Well, you could have had one of the big guys carry you, but I don't recommend it. My insides feel like a milkshake!" One of the Omaticaya had slung Jake over his shoulder like a bag while another had carried his wheelchair on the trek here from the shack. This was just the final part of the whirlwind of activity that had filled the last six hours. But they were ready now—at least Norm sure hoped they were.

The Na'vi camps, which the enemy planned to blanket with missiles, were now just empty shells. Thousands of tiny fires burned to provide infra-red signatures for the watching enemy satellites, but the people and animals had all snuck away into the deeper forests and, hopefully, to safety. A handful of volunteers remained to tend the fires. They would dive into deep holes that had been dug once the enemy arrived.

_If_ the enemy arrived. Jake had deployed all the ikran riders, over two thousand of them, up onto the floating mountains. They were there now, clinging to the undersides of the rocks, out of view of the enemy, ready to ambush the helicopters as they approached. With any luck the enemy would pay a heavy price for this raid.

They had salvaged about forty of the little communicators from the dead humans of the first battle and Omaticaya warriors with communicators were attached to most of the groups of ikrans to report in as soon as they spotted the attackers. Fortunately, the Na'vi were very quick to understand how to use the simple devices. The only trick had been to convince them _not_ to use them until the right time.

But the big problem was that the enemy's primary target, the Tree of Souls, could not be moved out of harm's way as the camps had been. It couldn't move and the enemy knew just where it was. It had to be defended. A dozen of the groups of ikran riders had been placed along the path the strike group was supposed to follow. The Scorpions would be coming in low and the ikrans could dive on them from the floating rocks. With luck they would take out the helicopters.

But just in case, Jake and Norm would be the backup. Norm looked again at the tube in his hand. It was a Viper GPM, General Purpose Missile. Jake said that it was standard issue infantry equipment, useful against a variety of targets including armored vehicles—and helicopters. They had found two of them among the other gear left by the humans. So, he and Jake were sitting out in the open as the last resort. "You sure these things will work?" he asked.

"They ought to," replied Jake. "Their radar tracking won't work here in the Flux, but the IR should work fine. After their trip to get here the Scorpions' engines will be hot and the missiles ought to be able to lock on pretty easily. You clear on how to use it?"

"I think so. It's simple enough: point it at the target, press the first trigger, wait until the little circle in the view sight turns red and then press the second trigger. Bingo, one dead helicopter."

"Yeah. Now I want you to fire first…"

"Why?"

"Just trust me on that. Pick a target, if there's more than one it doesn't matter which, and when you're ready fire. I'll take whatever's left."

"You're assuming there won't be more than two left by the time they get here, Jake. What if there's more?"

"We only found two of these, if there's more there's nothing we can do. Trust to luck—and Eywa."

"Right." Norm didn't have a lot of confidence in Eywa's tactical abilities, but Jake was right: there wasn't anything else they could do. He let out a long sigh. "Man, if Max hadn't warned us about this, we would have been screwed."

"That's for sure. I was careless. I should have set up a system of scouts with communicators right from the start."

"You can't do everything, Jake."

"Gotta try." Norm shook his head. _You try to take the weight of the world on your shoulders and you'll just end up being crushed. _But there was no point trying to tell that to Jake… He checked his watch.

"If they're on time, they ought to be here soon."

"Okay, let's get ready," said Jake. "You stand over there about twenty meters." Norm did so and clicked on the targeter of his launcher. They stood and sat in the pleasant darkness and waited. Five minutes went by.

"They ought to be here by now, shouldn't they?"

"I never saw a military operation that was on time, Norm. Take it easy. A few minutes delay is normal."

Norm tried to take it easy, but it wasn't easy. His palms were sweaty and he could feel his legs quivering. Maybe it was true that he could only act bravely in his avatar form. Well, he had gone out after his avatar was wounded, but he hadn't been quite right in the head at that moment. _Okay, I'm scared. Jake doesn't look scared. But he's a real warrior, he's done this sort of thing before._

Another minute or two went by and then suddenly there was a voice on the communicator that made him jump. "Post One. Enemy in sight…. Attacking." Jake had made up a set of very simple messages for the Na'vi to use and fortunately, they seemed to have amazingly good memories and learned the drill in the short time they'd had.

"Okay, this is it," said Jake.

The second group reported in a moment later but then nearly a minute went by and they heard from the fifth group. Groups three and four probably hadn't been in the right position or they hadn't seen the fast-moving, dark-colored Scorpions or maybe they just hadn't been able to get into a position to attack. "Post Six attacking…" A few seconds later a distant explosion echoed faintly off the floating mountains and Norm pumped his fist.

"Got one!"

"Three left," said Jake.

After a dozen heartbeats there was a flash of yellow light off to the north and then another explosion. "That's two!" But there were only three more groups of ikrans left…

"Get ready," said Jake. Norm hoisted the missile launcher up to his shoulder and squinted through the targeting sight. It showed a surreal world where heat was light. Jake had told him to ignore anything that wasn't orange, yellow or white. Right now there wasn't anything…

_There!_

Two yellow blobs appeared, one after the other. They didn't look like anything except yellow blobs. Norm centered one in the middle of his sight and pressed the first trigger. A green circle appeared and it briefly danced between the two blobs before settling on the one Norm had centered. But it stayed green and the blob was getting bigger fast. Norm thought he could hear the sound of rotors.

"Come on! Come on!" he growled.

The circle turned red and he squeezed the second trigger.

A shockingly loud noise assaulted his ears and he yanked the launcher away from his eye and watched his missile's flaming exhaust streak away into the sky. It flared brightly but got smaller and smaller very quickly. Suddenly it blossomed into an enormous flower of flame that lit up the floating mountains around it. Hundreds of flaming bits rained down and the blossom slowly faded. A thundering explosion shook the air.

"_Yes!_ I got it, Jake! I got it!" Their Na'vi escort were all cheering, too.

But now his stunned ears picked up the sound of rotors again. Louder, much louder. _The last one! _"Shoot, Jake! Shoot!" he cried.

But Jake didn't shoot.

Frantically Norm looked up and he could actually see a dark shape against the sky hurtling toward them at a frightening speed. "What are you waiting for?" he screamed. "Shoot it!"

Jake shot.

Another missile roared skyward and only a few seconds later the sky was blasted apart in a fiery explosion. The concussion slammed into Norm and actually knocked him down. Moments later he could hear something large crash into the ground. He picked himself up and saw the flaming wreckage of the Scorpion barely two hundred meters away.

"Well that was… that was exciting," he gasped. "What the hell were you waiting for, Jake?"

"That's why I wanted you to fire first, Norm. I couldn't fire until the explosion from the first chopper died down or my missile would have likely homed in on it instead of the last Scorpion. I figured you might have a little trouble waiting." Norm could see him grinning in the dark.

"Well, yeah, you're probably right. But you might have warned me!"

"What fun would that have been?" But then he added: "Good job, Norm. Really good job."

"Thanks, but what about all the other helicopters?"

"Just starting their attack runs now. Listen." Norm stopped and listened and was amazed that there was a string of messages coming in from the other groups of ikrans that had been posted all around the Tree of Souls in other directions. How long had that been going on? He'd been so focused on what was happening here everything else had been blotted out. A distant rumble to the southwest caught his attention. A little later there was another one, more to the east.

"What's happening?"

"We won't know that until it's over," said Jake. "Half the time when I was in the Marines I didn't know if we'd won or lost the battle until I saw it on the news the next day."

Suddenly there was a tremendous rippling explosion rising up through the forest a couple of kilometers to the south. The light from it almost turned night into day. A few second later there was another, similar blast to the northwest. "Jesus!" he gasped.

"We knew we weren't going to stop all of them," said Jake. "Let's hope those just hit empty camsites."

"Yeah… yeah…" Norm tried to remind himself that was the plan. But more explosions shook the forest, both big and small. "God, if they'd dropped that on us while we were sleeping…!"

"We wouldn't have woken up. But it seems to be dying down now, I think maybe…"

Suddenly, there were squawking ikrans overhead and then the roar of helicopter rotors. Something rushed past so low Norm actually ducked. A dark shape, spitting fire, hurtled into the night and then, incredibly, it clipped one of the stone arches and spun into the ground and blew up. "Wow!" cried Norm. He stood there looking at the flaming wreck and then slowly staggered over to Jake and collapsed next to him, his quivering legs unable to hold him up any longer.

But that was the last of it. No more rotors, no more explosions. The night slowly became quiet again and the plants and the insects glowed pink, green, and blue as if nothing had happened.

[Scene Break]

"How many?" snarled Miles Quaritch. He sat on his bed and clenched his fists

"Twelve, sir," replied Harriet Kim. "Five Scorpions and seven Sampsons. All lost. Captain Waldron with them. And the satellite photos confirm that the primary target wasn't hit."

"Why? God damn it, _why_?" The plan should have worked perfectly!

"It was an ambush, sir. They knew we were coming."

"How?"

Kim looked very uneasy and glanced at Lieutenant Asoka. The two of them had come to report this disaster. "It was my fault, sir…"

"No it wasn't, Harri!" interrupted Asoka. "If you hadn't tipped me off, we still wouldn't even know what had happened! If I'd just been quicker…"

"People, _I'll_ decide which of you to shoot after you tell me what's happened!" snapped Quaritch. "Now out with it!"

"Yes, sir," said Kim. "We have a traitor in our midst…"

"Who?"

"Dr, Patel, sir. He's been feeding information to Sully and the others."

Rage filled Quaritch. "Have him arrested! At once!"

"Already done, sir," said Kim. "As soon as Lieutenant Asoka showed me what he'd found, I had Patel put in detention.

"Uh yes, Captain Kim told me that she suspected someone had helped Chacon break the others out of detention, sir," said Asoka. "When I checked the security logs I saw that Dr. Patel had been present during the break-out. But since then he's also been in communications with the rebels. He… he sent them a complete copy of the attack plans for last night."

"This is my fault," said Kim who looked genuinely distressed. "I should have examined those logs myself days ago. There's no excuse."

Quaritch's initial impulse was to agree with her, but he knew that wouldn't be fair. They were so short-handed—even before all their recent losses—that most officers had to wear two or even three hats. Priorities had to be set and sometimes jobs just had to wait. Considering all that had been going on it was easy to see how something like this could be pushed to the back burner.

"But how was it done?" demanded Quaritch. "We monitor communications, don't we? And how did he get those plans?"

"It was really clever, sir," said Asoka. "At least the communications part. The scientists have these sensor probes all over the place. Temperature probes, rainfall probes, seismic probes, probes to monitor animal migrations, thousands of them. And they're all constantly sending information back and forth with Hell's Gate. They have their own frequency band assigned to them and, well, it's all so routine—and so constant—that no one's paid any attention to it. Patel managed to hide his own communications inside all that routine traffic. I doubt anyone would have ever spotted it normally."

"As for the battle plans," said Kim, shaking her head. "We used the big holographic display in the control room to map it out and… well… Patel could have probably accessed it and copied the files before I erased them."

"That miserable bastard!" spat Quaritch. "I'll have him shot!"

"Uh, well, the regulations are a little vague on this, him being a civilian and all," said Kim. "It might be better to send him back to Earth to stand trial, sir."

"After all the good men he's gotten killed? I'll shoot the son of a bitch myself!" His hand brushed against his hip, but no pistol hung there.

"We at least need to question him, sir," said Asoka. "Find out if anyone else is involved."

"Yes! Yes, by God, we'll question him! Right now!"

[Scene Break]

"So we hurt them pretty bad two nights ago," said Jake. He sat next to Neytiri and held her hand. She was looking a little stronger today and she seemed happy enough to see him—even like this. He'd barely had time to even see her the previous day, but things were settling down a bit again. It was raining today, but the Omaticaya had built a little wicker shelter over her bed and they were both staying dry. "We knocked down eleven of their helicopters and that's almost a third of what they had left. And they didn't hurt us too badly in return. About a hundred killed or wounded."

Neytiri shook her head weakly. "Before all this I would have considered a hundred an unimaginable disaster," she said. "I hate this, Jake. I hate this war."

"Well, with any luck it will be over soon. We have nearly ten thousand warriors here now and a lot more on the way from what the newcomers say. I've got scouts with communicators up on the hills around Hell's Gate and we're starting a harassment campaign."

"Harassment?"

"Yeah, the base itself is too strong to attack directly yet, but small parties are sneaking in as close as they can, especially around the mine where the security is less tight and doing whatever damage they can. The young hunters are turning it into a game. We'll keep hurting them until they agree to give up and leave. And if they won't, well, eventually we'll be strong enough to force them."

"At what cost?"

Jake grimaced. "Yeah, it will be a bloodbath if we have to go in like that, but what else can we do? We can't give in and let them stay, can we?"

"No… no, of course not. But so much blood. So much suffering. I have no wish to kill again, Jake. Not even the Sk… the enemy."

"Well, hopefully they'll have the sense not to force a battle they can't win. And then once we have the base, we can fix you up." He smiled at her.

She smiled back thinly, but then the smile faded. "Jake you must promise me something."

"What?"

"Jake, Ma Jake, if you cannot give me my legs back—I know you will try, but if you cannot—then you must promise that you will help me go to Eywa."

"What?" An icy hand gripped Jake's heart. "What do you mean?"

"It is the way of my people. When someone is too badly injured to live, the one that is closest to them will help send them to Eywa."

"You mean kill them?" said Jake in a choked voice.

"Yes."

"No! That's crazy! And you're not too badly hurt to live! You're getting stronger every day!"

"Half of me is. But the other half… is dead." A tear dripped from one eye. "Jake, please. Promise me. I… I cannot live like this!"

A panic was growing in him. A panic mixed with fury. "You can't? You can't? Well look at me! _Look at me_, damn it!" He grabbed his wheel chair, levered himself up and then collapsed back to the ground. "I've lived like this for two years! And you're ready to give up after a few days! You haven't even tried, you coward!"

Neytiri flinched like she'd been struck and the anger drained out of him instantly. "Sorry," he groaned. "I'm sorry. That was stupid of me. I felt the same way when it first happened to me. It took a long time to accept it. But you will accept it eventually, Neytiri. If you have to. You probably won't have to! Oh, this is stupid! Why are we even talking about this? We'll get you fixed up! You've gotta believe that!" Half of his guards had stopped to stare, but he'd lapsed back into English and they didn't understand. He ran a hand through his hair and tried to figure out what to say. Neytiri was looking at him, hurt, doubtful…

"Jake! Hey Jake!" shouted Norm suddenly.

"_What?"_ he snarled over his shoulder.

Norm had been running toward him from the shack but pulled up like he'd struck an invisible wall. He stared awkwardly at Jake and Neytiri. "Uh… Max just sent a text message. He wants to talk to you right away."

Jake looked back at Neytiri. "It'll be all right," he whispered. "You have to believe that."

"I will try, my love."

Jake let Norm lift him into his wheelchair and then push him back to the shack. An Omaticaya warrior stood next to the steps and simply lifted up Jake and his wheelchair and deposited him on the porch next to the airlock. He and Norm crowded into it and waited for it to cycle. "This is the first we've heard from Max since the attack," ventured Norm. "Maybe he has some good news this time."

"We can hope," growled Jake.

They went inside and Norm set up the computer display so they could both see it. "Okay, here comes his message," said Norm. He flicked a switch and Max's face filled the screen.

But his face was bruised and bloody. One eye was nearly swollen shut.

"Hello, Sully," said a despised voice. The picture pulled back and he saw that Max was tied to a chair and standing next to him was Quaritch. "As you can see I've caught on to your friend here."

"You bastard!" cried Jake.

"Now, now, let's not start calling names," said Quaritch with a nasty smile. "I could think of a lot of them I could apply to you, but what's the point? We have business to discuss."

"What business?"

"Well, your surrender would be a good place to start."

"Surrender? You're crazy! If anyone's going to surrender it's gonna be you, Quaritch!"

"Oh, I don't think so, Sully!" Jake watched in horror as Quaritch drew his pistol and pressed the muzzle against Max's temple.

"Because unless you surrender, I'm gonna blow Dr. Patel's head right off!"

To Be Continued


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Jake stared at the display in fear and impotent fury. Max's eyes were wide and sweat trickled down his battered face. He tried to lean his head away from the gun, but Quaritch just pushed the pistol against him a little harder.

"Well, Sully, what's it gonna be?" said Quaritch. "Either you tell your blue friends to go on home and leave us alone or Patel's brains are gonna be splattered all over the floor."

He would do it. Jake didn't have the slightest doubt that Quaritch would carry out his threat. He'd seen his type before: a bully with a streak of sadism. Put someone like that in a position of power and… anything was possible.

"Don't give in, Jake!" shouted Max suddenly. He was rewarded with Quaritch's pistol slapped into his face, tearing his lip and smearing blood across his cheek. Max groaned and sagged in the chair.

"Maybe I should count to three," said Quaritch. "One…"

"Save your breath, Quaritch!" snarled Jake. Quaritch paused and looked right at him.

"Well?"

"I'll make a counter-proposal," said Jake. "You get on board your shuttles and go back to Earth and we'll let you go unmolested. If you don't, if you kill Max, then _all_ of your brains are gonna be splattered all across Hell's Gate! You're not alone there in that room Quaritch! All the rest of you listen: he's gonna get you all killed! Get out now and you can live! Follow him and you're all dead!"

"Shut up!" shouted Quaritch The pistol briefly flicked toward the camera, but then went back to Max's head, pushed even more savagely against it. "Last chance, Sully."

Jake braced himself. He'd seen other people, other friends, killed before. Killed a lot more messily than this was going to be. Still…

"Jake!" gasped Norm from next to him, but he silenced him with a glare. They locked eyes for a moment and Norm blinked and looked away.

He looked back at Max. The scientist had his eyes squeezed shut. _Damn! _He was a good man. And how many more good people was he going to get killed before this was through? Eytukan, Grace, Trudy, Tsu'tey, Eywa only knew how many Na'vi… and maybe Neytiri, too. How many more? Eywa had chosen him to save the world, but She'd never said anything about how much that was going to cost! He'd been prepared to die himself—part of him _had_ died—but how much more blood was going to be on his hands before this was through? He gritted his teeth.

Quaritch cocked the hammer of the pistol and…

…the screen went blank.

[Scene Break]

Norm stared at the blank computer display and gasped: "Omigod! What happened? Did he…? Jake! Do you think he shot Max?" Jake slowly turned to face him.

"He could have. But… I don't think he was the one who broke the connection, so there might be some sort of disagreement in his headquarters. That would be a good thing for us."

"But what about Max? He was going to kill _Max_, Jake!"

"Don't you think I know that?" exploded Jake in reply, his voice loud and shrill. "What the hell did you expect me to do? Surrender? Give up?" He seized an empty coffee mug and flung it against the wall.

"No, but…"

"D'you think Trudy would want us to give up? Or Grace? _Do you_?" His voice rose to a scream.

"Jake!"

"What do you want from me? I can't fix everything! I can't save everyone!" To Norm's astonishment Jake was crying. "God help me, I can't save everyone." He turned away and put his face in his hands.

[Scene Break]

Harri Kim switched off the camera and said: "Sir! That's enough!" Quaritch looked up at her in surprise and anger. "That's enough, sir! Sully isn't going to give in!"

The anger on the Colonel's face slowly faded and was replaced by a look of calculation. Kim let out her breath when he took the pistol away from Patel's head and let down the hammer. "No, you're probably right, Captain." Suddenly the pistol was against Patel's head again. "But why shouldn't I execute this traitor anyway?"

"Sir!' cried Kim in alarm. "There has to be a court martial, a hearing! You can't just execute him summarily!" She looked around the room for some support. Suki Asoka was there along with a half-dozen others.

"Why not? He's a traitor, he helped kill hundreds of our comrades, he's a danger to us, why not kill him now and be done with it?" Quaritch actually seemed to be enjoying the discussion! He'd been toying with Sully and now he was toying with her! Patel's eyes were rolling in terror, but a streak of anger flared inside her.

"But it's not… we can't just… " She looked pleadingly at Asoka who managed to babble out:.

"We haven't finished questioning him, sir. He might tell us…"

"If he hasn't told us anything by now, I doubt he will." Quaritch cocked his pistol again.

"Sir, p-please," stuttered Kim.

"Think of… think of all the… _paperwork, _sir!" said Asoka.

Everyone froze.

Slowly a smile came to Quaritch's face. Then he chuckled and finally laughed out loud. He waved his pistol at Asoka. "All right, Lieutenant, all right! I'll spare you all the paperwork! Take him if you want him. Lock him up tight! Question him all you like. But he's your responsibility! He makes anymore trouble and I'll splatter _your_ brains! Understand?"

"Yes sir!" Asoka looked simultaneously alarmed and relieved.

"Good." Quaritch holstered his pistol and turned to leave. "Captain, with me." Kim hastened to catch up.

[Scene Break]

Norm sat there in stunned silence watching Jake. He _had_ been expecting him to fix everything, hadn't he? Everyone was expecting him to do that. Hell, if all this Toruk Macto stuff was really true even _Eywa_ was expecting him to fix everything! He slowly got up and went over and put his arm around Jake's shoulder.

"Sorry, Jake, " he whispered. "That was stupid of me. I know you're doing your best and it was wrong for me to expect more. Sorry."

Jake sniffed and straightened up and briefly squeezed Norm's hand. His fingers were wet. "It's all right. Weren't you gonna check out your avatar or something?"

"Yeah. Sure. I'm going to try and make the link with it and see what kind of shape it's really in."

"Need any help?"

"No, I'll be okay."

"All right, I'm going back outside." Jake pushed his chair into the airlock and shut the hatch.

"Holy shit," hissed Norm. _Are any of us gonna get out of this in one piece?_ He sighed and tried to quiet his jangled nerves. Eventually he went over to the main power panel and threw the switch to activate one of the link capsules. And there was yet another worry: the power cells for the shack were slowly draining. If they didn't rigidly conserve, in another month they wouldn't have power to run the links or even recharge their exo-packs. He tried not to think about that and busied himself setting up the link. When all was ready he got inside and closed the lid.

A few moments later the familiar dizziness whirled him into his avatar and he opened his eyes. The avatar had been moved to the Omaticaya camp where it was being tended along with some of the other wounded from the fighting. He was relieved that the link still worked. As he cleared his head and looked around a Na'vi woman was suddenly by his side.

"Oh! You are awake!" she said, looking very surprised.

"Hello, Lanuma, I see you."

"You… you know me?" she asked.

"Of course, we met two days ago when we brought the avatar over… oh!" _Stupid!_ "Lanuma, I'm Norm Spellman! The dreamwalker!"

She looked at him closely. "Truly?"

"Yes! I thought we explained… well, I guess we didn't explain well enough."

"I heard the words the Sky Person spoke, but… " She tilted her head and held out her hands helplessly.

" I'll try to explain it better-later, " said Norm, smiling. "But for right now, let's see how well this body is healing." He slowly rolled over onto his right side and then pushed himself upright. The wound in his left chest hurt, but not too badly. The read-out from the medkit after the surgery indicated that the damage had been fairly routine and there should not be any complications. Between medication and the naturally robust Na'vi healing process the avatar ought to be nearly back to normal in a few weeks. Or at least that's what the machine said, Norm wanted to see for himself. So far, so… _Yikes!_

He suddenly realized that his avatar was naked.

"Are you all right… Normspellmon?" asked Lanuma.

_Well, she has been tending the body for two days…_

"Sure. Uh, are there any clothes around here?"

[Scene Break]

Kim followed Quaritch into the corridor where he suddenly spun to face her. "Don't _ever_ challenge me like that in front of others again, Captain! Understand?" He was a big man, much bigger than her, and he was less than a meter away, looming over her. The bruises on his face were fading and the doctor had removed the drain from his skull when he released him, but he still looked damn scary. Kim took a half-step backwards and bumped into the corridor wall.

"Yes sir. I'm sorry sir. It's just that…" _If I'd waited it would have been too late._

"All right then," said Quartich continuing on his way as if nothing had happened. "Brief me on these latest enemy raids."

"Uh, yes, sir." Kim tried to mentally switch gears. A moment ago she was pleading for a man's life and now Quaritch wanted a routine report! "There were three overnight and two more this morning. All but one was around the mine. One of the miners was wounded—pretty badly, I'm afraid— and there was some minor damage to equipment. The one at the base here was repulsed with no loss to us and we believe we killed at least one of the attackers."

"Good," said Quaritch.

_Good? We can't trade casualties one-for-one! They outnumber us five-to-one right now and it's only going to get worse!_

"Unfortunately, there's no doubt that the enemy has established at least six observation posts on the hills surrounding the base. They're looking right down on us, sir, watching our every move." Quaritch's brisk pace was forcing her to alternately walk and run to keep up with him.

"What do you recommend we do about that, Captain?"

"That's a tough call, Colonel. Just firing missiles at them from here probably won't do much good. We could certainly kill some of them, but we can't really afford to spend the missiles. If the enemy does launch a major attack we'll need every one we have to defend the base. We've sent gunships out after them, but they just fade into the forest when they see us coming and, again, we can't afford to expend a lot of ordnance on them since they'll only come back anyway. The only permanent solution would be to build a string of fortified outposts on those hills, but we just don't have the manpower for that."

"We didn't have the manpower, Captain, but that's about to change."

"Sir?"

"Watch." Their walk had brought them to the command center and then right into Administrator Selfridge's office. He looked up as they entered.

"Colonel? From the expression on your face I take it that Sully didn't capitulate? Did you… uh…?"

"No, Sully didn't give up and no, I didn't execute Patel—yet," said Quaritch.

"A number of the scientists are asking about Patel, protesting his arrest."

"Well you can just tell them that he'll stay locked up and if any of them step one centimeter out of line I'll lock them up, too!" snapped the Colonel. "All of those bastards are enemy sympathizers! If I had enough cells I'd just lock them all up right now."

"So what do you plan to do? Attacks on the mine are increasing and the workers are complaining. I know that opening Site 2 is out of the question right now, but Site 1 has to be kept in operation!"

"It will be, sir, but there may be some temporary interruptions. In fact, I'm here to requisition about four hundred of your people."

"Four hundred! What for?"

"I'm going to form them into an auxiliary infantry force, a temporary militia, until the crisis is past. If you'll check the regulations you'll see that I have the authority to do that in an emergency. Well, this is an emergency and I'm doing it." He turned to Kim. "Captain, use the personnel files to pick out the best four hundred and then turn them over to Sergeant Major McGill for training. They all got basic firearms instruction when they first got here, but have him give them a quick refresher course. Draw weapons and gear from the armory and get them equipped. I want them ready to deploy in three days."

"Yes, sir. What… what are you planning to do with them?"

"We are going to set up those fortified outposts you were just talking about. Pick out eight locations. We still have a few AMP suits left and I recall there are some spare mini-gun turrets in storage. I figure we put two AMPs and ten regular troopers and thirty of the militia in each outpost. We can support them with missiles and gunships from here. With some aggressive patrolling we can deny the hills to the enemy and provide an added layer of security for your mine, Mr. Selfridge."

Kim was stunned. "But… but sir." He glared at her and she remembered his warning in the corridor. "Yes, sir, I'll get right on it."

"Good, carry on."

[Scene Break]

Jake sat next to Neytiri and watched her sleep. He was still shaken from the confrontation with Quaritch—and Norm. Was Max dead? Had he condemned another man to death? There hadn't been any choice, but that didn't make it any easier. He stared down at his hands and they were trembling. He looked up as Tarro came over and asked if he needed anything. Jake told him no and he withdrew. Tarro had become the de facto leader of his 'headquarters guard'. He was issuing orders to the other Omaticaya in Toruk Macto's name and everyone was obeying. Strange. But he wondered how long that was going to continue to work. More and more Na'vi were arriving every day and many were asking to see the mighty Toruk Macto.

"Well here I am!" he said aloud. "impressed?"

He continued to stare at Neytiri and he recalled his horror at their earlier conversation. Kill her? Help her die? He'd drive a knife into his own heart before he'd do that to her! But it wouldn't come to that. They'd take Hell's Gate, get access to the surgery there. Fix her spine. They had to!

He was still sitting there, locked in gloomy thoughts when Norm returned. "How'd it go?" he asked.

"Good," said Norm. "The link still works and the avatar is in pretty good shape. Weak and sore, but healing well. That woman, Lanuma, is taking good care of it when I'm not connected." He sat down next to him. "So… what happens now?" The issue of Max lay unspoken between them and neither was inclined to pick it up again.

"Well," sighed Jake, "I'd have to say that any chance for a negotiated settlement has failed."

"Yeah. So what do we do?"

"We turn up the heat."

To Be Continued


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Sam Halstead was sitting up in bed and eating solid food when Harri Kim entered his room. He smiled and waved her to the chair. "Morning, Harri, how are you?"

"I'm fine, sir. How are you?"

"Better each day. It's been what? Twelve days since I was brought in here more dead than alive. The doc says another week and I can get out of here."

"That's wonderful, sir. I… I'll be very glad when I can turn things back over to you."

"How are things going? Rough?"

"Not that bad, I guess. We got the last of the outposts set up today, but I'm not sure how much good they're really going to do. They're spread too far apart to be mutually supporting and the militia are almost useless for any sort of patrolling between the posts. None of them are happy to be stuck out in the bush away from the base and asking them to go sneaking through the forest looking for an enemy that's way better at that stuff than they are… well, most of them are just refusing to go. We don't have enough regular troopers to patrol alone, so the Na'vi can sneak past almost at will. They seem very adept at avoiding our sensors and satellite observation. I'm guessing that's Sully's doing: he was a recon marine and they're trained in all those tricks. They're still raiding the mine and Selfridge is screaming about the damage and casualties. Enemy reinforcements are continuing to arrive; there's close to thirty thousand of them in the Flux now and still more on the way."

"How are they feeding themselves?" asked Halstead.

"They've been conducting mass hunts, but yes, that's my one real hope about this whole thing, sir: eventually they'll strip the area bare and have to disperse or starve. But I'm afraid they'll launch an all-out assault before that happens."

"Can we resist an attack like that, do you think?"

"Honest to God, sir, I don't know. We could kill a hell of a lot of them, but if they're willing to take the losses and keep coming then, well, they'll just swarm over us. And they seem to have lost whatever fear they had of our weapons. Some of their banshee riders were playing chicken with our missile batteries the other day! They'd fly in close until we launched and then they'd dive into the forest and try to get the missile to detonate in the treetops and escape. I damn well know that we were killing some of them, but they kept doing it! I finally had to order Missile Control to stop shooting at any single banshees because we were using up too much ordnance."

Halstead stared at the young woman. She seemed worn to a frazzle. He felt guilty about still being in the infirmary while so many others were being worked so hard. But a few expeditions from his bed had shown he wasn't fit to resume duty yet. "So Quaritch is just hoping to ride this out? Hoping the Na'vi get bored or hungry enough to leave?"

"I don't know what his plan is, sir. I don't know if he even has a plan. Ever since his last attack and the ploy with Dr. Patel failed he's gone over to the defensive. Which isn't like him at all."

"Any chance of a negotiated settlement? Can this Sully be dealt with?"

Harri shrugged. "There was only that one brief exchange. Sully demanded that we pack up and leave. Quaritch wasn't having any of that, of course, so there's been no contact since."

"Are we even sure that Sully is in command of the Na'vi? I mean why would they follow him?"

"I don't know, sir. But if he's not in command he must be a close advisor to whoever is. After all, Patel sent our battle plans to Sully and within hours they were using them to ambush our forces."

"True. Maybe I should talk to Selfridge."

"He might be receptive, sir. I can tell he's getting real sick of this situation. Production at the mine is almost at a standstill and the Colonel can't give him any concrete promises about when things can get back to normal. Of course if Sully sticks to his demand for a complete evacuation, Selfridge isn't going to go along with that."

"No. But maybe some middle ground can be found—if someone tried."

"Nobody's trying right now, sir."

"All right, I'll talk to Selfridge. Maybe I can…"

They both stiffened when an alarm claxon sounded. This was followed a moment later by the loudspeaker: "All personnel report to emergency stations! All personnel report to emergency stations!"

Harri Kim was out the door before Halstead could even say good-bye.

[Scene Break]

Captain Harriet Kim arrived in the command center winded after her run. Quaritch was already there and other personnel were quickly finding their posts. She glanced at the main tactical display and sucked in her breath. Several large groups of enemy forces, banshees it looked like, were displayed, a big one to the north, another to the northwest and several smaller ones scattered around the compass. But most of them were fifteen or twenty kilometers away and only closing very slowly. She saw Asoka at his station and went over to him.

"What's going on? Are they going to attack, do you think?"

"I don't know," he answered. "We've been watching them for a half hour, but they sure aren't in any hurry to get here. When they reached twenty klicks out the Colonel ordered the alert."

She quickly got herself up to speed, checking each station and then went over to Quaritch. "All stations manned and ready, sir. Missile batteries are tracking, automatic defenses active, and all gunships either in the air or ready to launch."

"Very good," said Quaritch. He didn't take his eyes off the displays and he issued no further orders so Kim went back to her rounds. Twenty minutes went by and the big groups closed to about twelve kilometers. She went back to the Colonel.

"We've got a good lock for the missiles, sir," she reported. "But I'm worried that they may just be trying to draw our fire like the other day, trying to make us waste missiles. They could still dive into the trees when we launch. I'm sure they've got eyes on us."

"Hold your fire, Captain. We'll wait until they get closer."

"Yes, sir."

But they didn't get any closer. They hovered for a while and then slowly withdrew again. After another fifteen minutes Quaritch cancelled the alert. Kim went over to him. "So what was that all about, sir?"

"Probably just testing our responses. Or maybe Sully's testing out his control of the hostiles. Keeping a large body of savages like that in line can't be easy." Kim detected a faint bit of admiration in Quaritch's voice.

"Yes sir. Any further orders?"

"No, I think we can…"

A sudden cry from one of the communications techs seized their attention: "Outpost Four is under attack!" Kim's eyes darted to the tactical display and was shocked to see a mass of red dots closing in on Outpost Four which was high on a hill to the east of the base. The enemy was practically on top of them! They'd been decoyed by the phony attack!

"Too close to our own troops for our missiles, sir!" she exclaimed.

"Get the Scorpions over there!" ordered Quaritch.

"Yes, sir!" She instantly gave the order and helicopters began vectoring on the outpost. But even the closest was three minutes away. A lot could happen in three minutes! A jumble of radio messages started coming in from the beleaguered outpost, but it was almost impossible to make any sense of them. She tried tying into a camera on one of the AMP suits in the outpost, but all that came through was a mass of flames with dim shapes moving in the distance. She pulled out a pair of binoculars and went to a window and tried to focus in on the outpost. There was already a column of black smoke rising from the mountaintop.

The Scorpions arrived and began buzzing around the outpost and after a minute or two began firing off their missiles into the surrounding forest. Clouds of white smoke rose up and mingled with the black and faint explosions could be heard even through the thick glass of the control center. She glanced aside as four Sampsons loaded with a platoon from the reaction force flew past, heading for the scene of action. But before they could get there, a message came in from one of the Scorpions that the enemy was in full retreat.

An hour later Kim met with Quaritch and the other senior officers—except for Suki Asoka, who was working on something for the Colonel.

"Thirty-eight dead, sir," she reported grimly. "Three of the infantry and one AMP suit broke through the enemy lines and made it out. The rest… didn't."

"What did we do to the enemy, Captain?" demanded Quaritch.

"It looks like about a hundred and fifty dead, mostly from the Scorpions. No telling how many wounded. The survivors dispersed into the forest. And we expended over three hundred missiles."

"How did they manage to take out the other AMP suit?"

"They burned it out, sir. It appears that they've developed a kind of Molotov Cocktail using clay pots and some sort of plant sap that sticks and burns like napalm. We found a few unbroken ones among the enemy dead."

"Sully," growled Quaritch. "Damn him."

"Sir," said Kim. "We're going to have to pull back the outposts."

"That's just what the enemy wants us to do, Captain."

"I'm not sure it is, sir. They can't get at us very well inside Hell's Gate. The outposts are putting our people out where they _can_ get at them."

"But only at a huge cost to them!"

"Which they can afford and we can't, sir! In any case, the militia are in near-mutiny. They are demanding to be pulled back."

"Well they can just…" Quaritch broke off as Lieutenant Asoka came into the room. He handed the Colonel a computer pad. He studied it for a few moments and then smiled.

"Forget about the outposts, Captain! We've got Sully now!"

[Scene Break]

Neytiri pushed herself to a sitting position and then lowered herself back down. She did it again. And again. She kept doing it until her breath came in gasps and the muscles in her arms were burning. She was getting stronger, there was no doubt of that. But her legs were still dead weights. Everything below her waist didn't even seem to exist—except to drag her down. Sometimes she wanted to cry, to scream, to throw things. But she didn't. Well, she _did_ cry, when no one was watching. But Jake had forced her to promise to not give up as long as there was hope.

And as long as the war went on.

She could see what the strain was doing to Jake. The enormous load of trying to be Toruk Macto in a body even more crippled than her own was slowly crushing him down. She'd seen him cry, too, when he thought no one was watching. She had to try to support him as he was supporting her. No more talk of returning to Eywa! Not while he was still fighting! She would stand—well, sit—by him for as long as the battle went on.

Afterwards… afterwards could wait.

But she was tired of being a complete invalid. Jake got around, did things, with only his arms. She could do the same! When she got her breath back she began again. Push herself up… lower herself down. Again and again.

"This is good. But don't over-do it, child." Neytiri looked up to see her mother standing there.

"I must be strong—in body as well as spirit."

"Yes, you must," said Mother, squatting down next to her. "We all must be. The fate of everything rests upon the edge of a knife. Your mate is showing strength beyond anything I could have ever expected. And I am very proud of you, Daughter."

Neytiri snorted. "That is the first time you've ever called Jake that. Now… now when it cannot even be true anymore."

"Is he not your mate?"

"In spirit, yes. But only in spirit. How can it be otherwise now?" Bitterness was creeping into her voice and she tried to stop it.

"Eywa's hand is resting on all of us and we cannot foresee the end She guides us to. Of this I am sure."

"Has She spoken to you?"

"Last night I had a dream. One of _those_ dreams. I dreamed of Toruk. I saw him above the Tree of Souls as the sky darkened."

"But Toruk is dead."

Mo'at shrugged. "But Eywa lives. As do we."

[Scene Break]

Captain Kim paused at the entrance to the detention center. She really shouldn't be here like this, but she wasn't _technically_ violating any regulations and perhaps it might even do some good. In one sense it was part of her duty. Duty was what drove Harriet Kim.

She used her ID to open the outer door and exchanged a few words with the guard and he let her into Patel's cell. He had seen her enter and was sitting on one of the bunks waiting for her, looking nervous. Most of his cuts and bruises were healed or nearly so. He hadn't pickup up any fresh ones she noticed. Suki Asoka had told her he had no intention of doing any further interrogations without direct orders from Quaritch. The first interrogation had left both of them sickened.

She let the door slide shut behind her and then took up a position of parade rest, facing Patel. "Good morning, Doctor," she said.

"Hi," he replied. "I… uh, I guess I ought to thank you for saving my life the other day."

"Save your thanks," she said coldly. "You might still be shot and it wouldn't bother me in the slightest to be part of the firing squad. Your actions helped cause the death of people under my command, my comrades, and my friends. I consider you a traitor and I hope that someday you will have to pay for that."

"So what do you want?"

Kim hesitated, not entirely sure how to answer that question. "I want some information from you. Not any military secrets—after this long in isolation I doubt you know any—but I'm trying to understand the motives of Jake Sully—and you—in hopes that we can resolve this mess without further bloodshed. Will you cooperate?"

Patel snorted out a laugh. "Our motives? I'd think they'd be pretty obvious to you!"

"Humor me."

Patel paused as if marshaling his thoughts. _Does even he know why he's doing this?_

"Well, I guess the short version is we want you to stop doing what you're doing!" he said after a moment.

"And the long version?"

"What you—the RDA—is doing here is wrong! _This isn't our world!_ We have no right to be here, no right to dig huge holes in the ground, no right to destroy the homes of the people who live here and no right to kill them if they resist! No right!"

Kim sighed. It was as she feared: the man was an idealist. He still believed that right and wrong actually mattered to the people making the big decisions. Long ago she had learned the fallacy of that belief—the hard way. But Patel was a scientist. Sully was not. Did he think the same way?

This whole thing was probably pointless, but Colonel Quaritch had called a meeting that would start in just an hour. She feared that he was going to announce yet another grand scheme to end the war at a blow. His pronouncement about 'having Sully' worried her. She had no idea what he had in mind and Suki Asoka said that he was under orders to keep his mouth shut and wouldn't tell her anything. But if this new plan was as poorly thought out as the past ones she needed to have something—anything—to use as a counterproposal if she was going to have any hope of talking him out of it.

She was tempted to throw the might-makes-right argument at Patel, but unfortunately he could throw it right back as justification for the Na'vi using _their_ might to wipe them all out. "I'm not here to debate the morality of the situation, Doctor. But the situation is this: Jake Sully demanded that all the humans pull up stakes and get out. The people I work for aren't going to agree to that. They want the unobtainium and they're determined to get it. Is there any middle ground that would allow a mining operation to exist that the Na'vi—and Jake Sully—would agree to? If not then I'm really afraid that a whole lot more people on both sides are going to get killed."

Patel opened his mouth but then shut it again without answering. He was thinking about his answer. Good. "I don't know," he said at last. "The mine _was_ here for quite a while before things got out of hand. Maybe… maybe there is some way it could work."

"Good. Let's see if we can come up with any ideas."

[Scene Break]

Jake pushed his wheelchair toward what he'd started calling 'Neytiri's cottage'. He was happy to see that Mo'at was there talking with her. He hated leaving her alone when he had to go inside the shack. He tried to conduct as much business as he could with her present now that she wasn't sleeping so much. In fact, a meeting was just about to start. He stopped next to her and exchanged greetings with Mo'at. A few moments later he saw Norm and Tarro and a half-dozen clan leaders approaching. These were some of the ones who had been present for the first battle, who had seen Toruk Macto and witnessed his destruction. They could be trusted to meet with him without freaking out.

Greetings were given all around and then they sat and squatted and got down to business.

"So, how did the attack go?" he asked. "I couldn't follow much over the communicator."

"The enemy outpost was overrun," answered Tarro. "Many foes, including a large metal one, were slain. Few escaped. The fire-balls worked very well."

"And our losses?"

One of the clan leaders, a man called Get'an, answered. "Heavy. More than a hundred. The enemy flying machines arrived quickly and many died before they could get to cover." Jake bowed his head. He'd known this was going to happen, but it still hurt.

"They fought valiantly," said another clan leader. "And they are with Eywa now."

An awful lot of people were taking up residence with Eywa these days. He hoped she was ready for all these guests. But was it true? Were all those dead people really with the 'planetary network' that Grace had theorized? Was _Grace_ there? He'd heard the voices himself when he linked to that tree, were they really the Na'vi ancestors 'souls', or just echoes of them? Did Pandora have its own actual heaven right here? The Na'vi certainly seemed to think so and it was the one thing about them that felt truly alien to Jake. If it was true and the Na'vi believed that it was true then their whole concept of life and death was… what? Maybe Neytiri's desire to 'go to Eywa' wasn't the same heart-shattering idea for her that it was for him. She wasn't really _going_ anywhere. Was it just a 'reset-and-play-again' button? And what about the warriors who were dying in the battles he planned? Maybe they didn't fear death the way humans did. He knew that on Earth there had been warriors whose religious faith was so fanatical that they gladly sacrificed themselves for their god. The idea was both enticing—and terrifying to him.

"Jake?" Neytiri had spoken and he realized that he'd let his attention wander.

"Uh, yeah. Please tell all the warriors who took part that I am proud and pleased with their actions. They did well."

"Toruk Macto," said Tarro, "your plan to divide the clans into the… the _battlgroups_, is working well. At first I did not understand, but now I see the wisdom of it. If you sent the clans into battle as they normally do, side-by-side with all their kin and neighbors, then one bit of ill-fortune and a whole clan could be devastated. This way, only a few from any one clan will die. That will fill their kin with the desire to strike the enemy again rather than break their spirits." He touched his forehead.

_Oh yeah, share the pain. Another of my brilliant ideas._

"Shall we attack another enemy post tomorrow?" asked Get'an.

Jake shook his head. "The same trick won't work twice, two days in a row. No, tomorrow I want you to go back to harassing the enemy. Small groups, hit and run. We will keep the enemy guessing. But I don't think the outposts will be there much longer anyway."

"Why not?" asked Norm.

"We know how many troops the RDA had to start and we've got a good guess how many we've killed. There's no way they have enough to man all those outposts and still have anyone left in Hell's Gate. They've got to be using mine workers as auxiliary troops. That last attack will have shown them what they're getting into and I don't think they'll like it. A few days of harassment and they'll run for it."

"Shouldn't we try to hurt them while they are still away from the base? They're a lot more exposed in those outposts."

"We could, I suppose, but at what cost? I'm hoping that if we keep chipping away at them and never give them the chance to really hurt us they might just give up."

"I can't see Quaritch giving up while he still has any bodies left to throw at us," said Norm, shaking his head. The sad truth was: neither could Jake.

"Toruk Macto?" Tarro was looking at him.

"Yes?"

"There is… another matter." The young warrior looked troubled.

"What is it?"

"Those of us who believe, we have tried to convince the others that Toruk Macto is with us, that they do not actually need to see him. It worked for a while. But there has been much grumbling of late. The newcomers are harder to convince. Yesterday a very large clan arrived from far away. They have made a great journey to come here and they demand to see Toruk Macto with their own eyes. We tried to calm them, but instead their words have grown angrier and the others are being swayed by them. We no longer know what to do."

"It is true," said Get'an. "And others are impatient that we do not all attack at once. They say that Toruk Macto would not hold them back."

Jake slowly nodded. He'd been expecting this, was surprised that it hadn't happened sooner.

"What are you going to do, Jake?" whispered Norm in English.

"There isn't anything I can do except show myself to them."

"Ma Jake!" exclaimed Neytiri. "Is that… is that wise?"

"Wise or not, I have to do it." He turned to Tarro. "Tell the clan leaders that I will meet with them. All of them. Tomorrow night at the Tree of Souls."

[Scene Break]

Harriet Kim went to the Control Center for the scheduled meeting with Colonel Quaritch but when she got there she was told that he was holding it in the main mess hall. _What's he up to now? _The mess hall was the only place big enough for a large meeting, but she hadn't expected this to be a large meeting. She hurried to get there and was the last one to arrive. As she came through the door she saw that while it wasn't a really large meeting, there were over thirty people there: All the officers she'd been expecting, plus all the remaining helicopter pilots. She moaned silently. _Another airstrike? Against what?_

The Colonel already had the big projector turned on and the all-too familiar satellite picture of the Tree of Souls and its surroundings was displayed.

"Well, people," he said as Kim took her seat, "we've had a stroke of good fortune. The enemy has made a serious mistake and we are now going to make him pay for it! During the last few actions they got sloppy with their communications security and Lieutenant Asoka, here, was able to locate their HQ. You can just make it out on this photo." He turned and pointed at the display and it zoomed in on what appeared to be a silver and yellow object partially obscured by trees. Yes, it could certainly be one of the modules from Site 26… Kim glanced over at Asoka who just raised an eyebrow.

"So, you are going to go out there tonight and blow it off the face of the planet. This time they'll have no warning that we're coming. At one stroke we'll eliminate their leadership and cripple them! Probably win this damn war!"

Kim clenched her fists, unsure what to do. Her talk with Patel had come up with a few ideas, but none of them were going to appeal to the Colonel when he had something like this in front of him. But could this work? Would it do any good? Or just make things even worse? Damn, she wished the Major was here!

"You'll leave at 0200 and stay in a single group. Plaster this entire area with everything you've got and we'll be sure to…"

"No way, Colonel!"

Kim jerked in her chair. One of the pilots, a big gruff fellow named, Gallagher, was on his feet and he didn't look happy.

Quaritch's face twisted with disbelief and anger. "What did you say, pilot?"

"I said: no friggin' way! No way in hell I'm goin' back into the Flux!"

"Damn right!" said another. "We've already lost enough friends in there!"

"I'm giving you orders!" snarled Quaritch. "And you'll…"

Another pilot stood up. "Not gonna happen!" he said. "That place is a goddam death trap!"

"That's for sure! You wanna hit that thing, fly the damn mission yourself!"

Half the pilots were on their feet and the rest seemed to be nodding in agreement. _Holy shit!_

Quaritch's face was red with fury. "Sit down! All of you!" Instead more of them stood up. "You'll obey orders or…"

"Or what?" shouted one of them. "You'll dock our pay? Well go right ahead! My life's worth more than any pay! I'll stay and help defend the base but I'm not flying any more of your freakin' suicide missions!" He turned and stalked toward the door. After a moment the rest began to follow.

"Get back here!" bellowed Quaritch. "Or I'll have you shot!"

Gallagher stopped in his tracks and spun around. The others stopped and turned, too. "Oh really?" he said, not looking the least bit afraid. "You planning on shooting me yourself… _Colonel_?" Kim suddenly realized that each and every one of the pilots had a pistol on his belt.

"Oh my God… Suki, get the duty squad up here, _right now_!" she hissed to Asoka.

Quaritch stood there, his hand twitching next to his holstered pistol in an impotent rage that Kim winced to look on. After a few seconds she began to hope that maybe the mess hall wasn't going to turn into a shooting gallery after all…

"I didn't think so!" sneered Gallagher. He turned away and stomped out the door. The other pilots withdrew more cautiously, some never actually turning their backs on Quaritch. But they all left, leaving the Colonel and his small band of officers alone in the room.

[Scene Break]

"He's losing control, sir."

Sam Halstead looked at Harri Kim and nodded.

"Once the word got out about what the pilots had done, all the militia in the outposts just marched back to the base. Our troops had no choice but to go with them. One group got ambushed by Na'vi on the way back and lost twenty men."

"What's the Colonel doing about it?"

"Nothing so far. I don't think he knows _what_ to do!"

Halstead said: "His command style has always been to be the biggest, toughest SOB on the base. It worked as long as no one stood up to him. But now…"

"And that's not all, sir," her voice fell to almost a whisper. "Some of the officers and senior NCOs are starting to talk about pulling out. Getting off Pandora. If they are, you can bet the rank and file are, too. It's starting to fall apart!"

Halstead nodded. That was always the trouble with mercenaries: they could be as tough and as sharp as regular troops, but only to a point. Ultimately they were fighting for themselves, not for some cause or country. If the going got too rough they could crumble with shocking swiftness. Only a loyalty to their comrades, and above all a loyalty to their commander, could hold them together in the rough times. And if they lost confidence in that commander…

"What are we going to _do_, sir?" asked Kim beseechingly. Halstead could see the dark circles under her eyes. There was a small twitch in the muscles next to her mouth that he'd never seen before. "I'm trying to maintain discipline, but the incidents are growing by the hour. The militia has practically dissolved and most of them haven't given back their weapons. The Colonel… The Colonel hasn't been out of his office since the pilots walked out on him."

"Well!" said Halstead, standing up. "I think I've been sitting here on my ass for long enough. Come with me, Harri, it's time we had a talk with Mr. Selfridge."

[Scene Break]

Norm Spellman looked at the horse and tried to figure out how he was going to get on it. His avatar was healing very well and he'd been able to go on increasingly lengthy walks with Lanuma keeping him company. But now he needed to go farther than he could comfortably walk and he would need the horse. He tried to pull himself up, but the chest wound had left his one arm very weak. He groaned and slid back down.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" asked Lanuma.

"Toruk Macto wants me to tour the camps and I can't do that on foot."

"Then let me help." She came up beside him and made a stirrup with her linked hands. He put his foot into that and she boosted him up on the horse. He made the tsahaylu and took control. For some reason, although he'd never ridden an Earthly horse in his life, he felt very comfortable on the Pandoran horses.

"Thank you," he said to Lanuma. She quickly mounted another horse and came up beside him. He was finding that he enjoyed his time with her very much. It was one tiny island of peace for him in a sea of war. They set out in a widening spiral around the Tree of Souls. Navi warriors and their ikrans and horses were camped everywhere. Thousands upon thousands of them. Camp after camp, clan after clan. There seemed no end to them. Norm didn't know how many had arrived; they had given up trying to count at around twenty thousand. Norm guessed there were at least twice that many now. Lanuma appeared to be stunned. _I've seen this many on one city street, but she's never seen more than a few hundred at once, I guess._

"Pretty amazing," he said.

"I have never heard of anything like it," said the woman. "But it… it makes me proud. So many answering the call to defend our land. Who could have guessed that we are so strong?"

As they rode it became apparent to Norm that the Na'vi themselves were having trouble dealing with their own massive numbers. Normally fastidiously clean, some of the older camps were looking—and smelling—rather untidy. Hygiene was becoming a problem. Firewood was getting hard to find in some camps. Food distribution, drinking water…

_We can't keep this up forever. We're running short on time, too._

And yet, everywhere they went, the people were in high spirits. They were practicing with their weapons, making arrows, making Jake's fire bombs. Experienced warriors were telling the newcomers about the Sky People weapons and machines and how to deal with them. But the main topic of conversation was that tonight they would at last get to see Toruk Macto. Everyone was excited and Norm reflected that a lot more than just the clan leaders were going to show up at the Tree of Souls tonight!

_What are you going to say to them, Jake? What can you possibly tell them?_

[Scene Break]

Harriet Kim sat in the small conference room with Major Halstead, Administrator Selfridge, Suki Asoka, and three other officers waiting for Colonel Quaritch to arrive. The Major had gone to Selfridge and suggested this meeting and he had immediately agreed. Selfridge projected the image of an easy-going, wise-ass, but Kim knew that underneath he was a capable, hard-nosed executive. The Pandoran expedition was one of the most important posts in the vast RDA empire. There's no way they would send an idiot to run it. Selfridge knew what the score was and knew that they were in a hell of a mess. Something had to be done.

But what?

Everyone seemed to tense when Quaritch entered the room. He ran his eyes over the group and frowned. "What's all this?" he growled.

"Have a seat, Colonel," said Selfridge. "I've decided that we need to talk about the situation and discuss our options." Quaritch grabbed a chair and plopped down in it, a skeptical, annoyed expression on his face. Selfridge then looked at Halstead. "Major, I'd like to welcome you back from you convalescence. I know that you've been following events from your sick bed. And you've been on Pandora longer than anyone here, I believe. I'd like to hear your opinion of the situation."

Halstead cleared his throat. "Well, sir, there's no point trying to pretend that the situation is anything but bad. The simple fact is that we are under siege by a vastly superior enemy. The mining operation, the main reason for our being here, is virtually shut down. We have no hope of receiving significant reinforcements, while the enemy has an almost unlimited reserve to draw on. If the enemy decides to launch a major attack it is doubtful we could survive it. Even if we did, a series of such attacks will eventually overwhelm us. Sir, militarily the situation is unwinnable."

"It's talk like that that's put us in this situation!" said Quaritch. "Defeatism is like a disease! If the damn cowards around here would just fight we can still beat these savages!"

"Realism isn't the same as defeatism, sir," replied Halstead. "It was a lack of realism that is largely responsible for the current mess. And if we don't look at the situation realistically, come up with some realistic options, then yes, we face almost certain defeat."

Kim sucked in her breath. She'd never seen Halstead challenge the Colonel so directly before. Quaritch looked surprised. But before he could come up with a reply, Selfridge intervened.

"So, do you have any realistic options to proposed, Major?"

Halstead glanced at her. She'd told him about her discussion with Patel and he'd been interested in some of the ideas. "Yes, sir. I think we have to start by looking at our objectives and those of the Na'vi. Our primary objective, the one of overriding importance, is to maintain the flow of unobtainium back to Earth. Correct?"

"Yes, of course."

"Everything else is secondary, including any issues of military dominance, racial superiority-or pride." He glanced at Quaritch. "Anything that will allow us to keep the mine and the supporting infrastructure working has to be acceptable to us. We have to be prepared to make any concession the Na'vi might demand in return for that."

"Now just a second," said Quaritch. "If you think for one minute that we're gonna crawl before those stinkin' blue-skinned…" Kim looked closely at Quaritch. His words were slurred even more than his usual drawl made them. Had he been drinking?

"Mr. Selfridge," interrupted Halstead. "Would you be willing to crawl to keep your mine open?"

Selfridge's eyebrows shot up. "I… might be. I'd need to know a bit more before I get out my kneepads, though."

"Yes," said the Major. "This is all entirely speculative until we talk to the enemy. But let's consider the Na'vi's objectives now. For years the natives tolerated our presence here, tolerated our scientists, tolerated the mine. There were some minor incidents, a few periods of more intense skirmishing, but for the most part they tolerated our activities. And all during that time we were acting under the mistaken belief that we were calling the shots. In fact, we were only able to act as we did because the Na'vi chose to let us. That all changed when we destroyed the Omaticaya hometree. Clearly we crossed some line when we did that. At that point our activities became no longer tolerable to them and they have reacted with greater resolve and greater unity than we ever suspected possible. The simple fact is that we badly underestimated them and now we are paying the price. The question we have to ask is there any way, any concessions we can make, that will allow us to return to the status quo ante bellum?"

"What do you think the Na'vi might want in exchange, Major?" asked Selfridge. "As Sully said that one time: there's nothing we have that they want."

"We—and Sully—were thinking too narrowly, sir. Thinking in terms of actual items that could be given in trade. Clearly, that is not what the Na'vi want. No twenty-four dollars in shiny beads is going to buy us this world. We have to stop thinking of the Na'vi as simple savages, as primitive people who are inconveniently in the way of our plans." Halstead paused and took a breath.

"We have to concede, now and forever, that Pandora belongs to them and them alone."

"What?" said Selfridge.

"My God," snorted Quaritch, "You can't be serious Halstead! You still on your meds? Come back when you sober up!" The Major frowned, but didn't seem surprised at the comment. But before he could respond, Lieutenant Asoka spoke up.

"Uh, sir? I think Major Halstead is right. Imagine if the situation was reversed. Imagine if some really advanced alien race showed up on Earth and wanted to open up a mine somewhere, digging up… I don't know, something worthless to us, but really valuable to them. Would we just sit back and accept some trinkets in exchange for a base that the aliens then fortified and filled with weapons and soldiers? In don't think so! We wouldn't want to allow them to establish that sort of power over us."

"Yes, exactly, Lieutenant," said Halstead. "We need to deal with the Na'vi the way we would a sovereign nation back on Earth. There were plenty of times… well, before the RDA became so prominent, there were plenty of times when a corporation from one nation would open up a mine or an oilfield or a factory inside another country. But the land they put their mine on was still the territory of the host nation. Aside from routine security, the corporation didn't bring its own army to occupy the land. The host would never tolerate it. No, the land was merely leased to the corporation and any security beyond the routine was supplied by the host country. An arrangement like this might be acceptable to the Na'vi."

"That's insane!" cried Quaritch. "You're proposing we place ourselves at their mercy!"

"We're at their mercy right now, Colonel." They locked eyes and Halstead didn't blink.

"Do you think the Na'vi would accept such a plan?" asked Selfridge. Kim could see that the administrator didn't like the idea much, but if it would keep the unobtainuum flowing maybe…

"We won't know until we ask them, sir. But I'm sure they are going to want better guarantees than our word. Sadly, our promises probably aren't worth much to them."

"You're actually proposing that we _disarm_ ourselves?" snapped Quaritch. "Leave ourselves as hostages to the Na'vi? You're crazy!"

Halstead shrugged. "Any corporation on foreign soil would be just as much a hostage. We'd need the Na'vi to protect us from the native wildlife, in any case."

"But… but the current mine will be played out eventually," said Selfridge. "Would they lease us new locations when we needed them, do you think?"

"Impossible to say, sir. But if we proved ourselves good, conscientious, _friendly_ tenants, then who knows? There's a lot of unoccupied territory on this planet. If we didn't screw up the environment, if we reclaimed the land once we were done with it, perhaps they would allow it. We won't know until we ask."

"And just who are ya gonna ask?' demanded Quaritch. "Sully? He's a traitor! He's killed hundreds of our men! You're just gonna forget that? Deal with him like he's some damn… _potentate_ or something?"

"If that's what we have to…"

"If those goddam cowardly pilots had just done their jobs, he'd be dead now! The enemy would be leaderless! I can't believe this!" Quaritch sputtered to a stop, out of breath.

"For all we know it's been Sully who's been holding the Na'vi _back_, Colonel," said Halstead. "But right now he and Spellman are the only ones we _can_ deal with." The Major looked at Selfridge. "Sir, you asked me for my recommendation. That's it."

Quaritch stood up and threw back his chair which clattered to the floor. "Well, if you're gonna just give everything away, disband our security forces, you don't need _my_ help!" He walked out of the room slamming the door behind him.

Everyone seemed to let out their breath simultaneously. Selfridge raised an eyebrow and chewed on his lower lip for a moment. "Okay," he said. "I'm willing to give this a try. But we need to approach this very carefully and not give away anything we don't have to. So let's get our proposal down on paper."

They worked for the rest of the afternoon putting together a proposal with as many alternatives as they could think of. Finally they tried to call Sully using the same communications link that Patel had been using.

Anti-climactically, all they got was a recording asking them to leave a message.

They decided to try again after dinner.

[Scene Break]

Tarro set Jake and his wheelchair down next to the Tree of Souls and then withdrew. The ground was too uneven for him to roll anywhere so he'd had to suffer the indignity of being carried. He wondered how many more indignities he'd have to suffer before the night was through.

_What the hell am I doing?_

He glanced back at the edge of the well the Tree sat in and saw Norm in his avatar setting Neytiri down so she was propped in a sitting position. Mo'at was next to her. All their eyes seemed to be on him.

Thousands of other eyes were, too.

The clan leaders, over four hundred of them, were just beyond Neytiri and the others, but behind them huge numbers of Na'vi had gathered. As Norm had told him, the word that Toruk Macto was going to be here tonight had spread like wildfire. A vast sea of blue bodies covered the surrounding hills. Some with ikrans were even arrayed on the stone arches above, silhouetted against the evening sky. Jake had worried that they were making an incredible target if Quaritch decided to launch another air strike. Tarro and Norm had assured him that scouts with communicators had a close eye on Hell's Gate and they would have plenty of warning if the enemy tried anything. So, the show would go on.

_I hope there won't be too many demanding refunds after it's over!_

He was too far away for his poor human ears to pick up any of the conversations among the watchers, but from all the gestures and gesticulations, he was quite certain the audience was already having doubts. Well, there was nothing he could do about that. He turned his chair in place to face the faintly glowing tree and levered himself out to slump in a not-quite kneeling position before it.

A slight tickle on his arm made him turn his head. One of the floating seeds from the tree, an _atokirina_, was balancing there. Neytiri had told him how the intervention of one of had stopped her from killing him on the day they met and how the swarm of them later convinced her to take him to Hometree. But here at the tree dozens of the beautiful little things floated and bobbed in the air. He doubted that any watchers were going to take it as a sign from Eywa this night.

"I guess you know why I'm here," he said aloud. "I can't link to you like I did the last time, but I'm guessing you know who I am and what I need." He bowed his head. "I've tried to do what you wanted—or what I guessed you wanted. I've tried to save the People and the forest. The job's about half done, I think. I'm hoping that the hardest half is done. But there's still a lot to do and, well, I'm only half the man I was before. I could use some help again." He paused and then looked up into the glowing branches.

"I admit that I was kinda pissed when you didn't send any help in the battle. But then I got to thinking that maybe you're not the big, flashy sort of god like I'm used to hearing about. No lightning bolts or parting oceans or plagues of locusts for you. But we couldn't have won if everyone hadn't been where they needed to be. Me, Neytiri, Norm, Trudy, Tsu'tey, Max… and Grace. Somehow we were all where we needed to be to get the job done. Maybe you answered my prayers before I even made them by setting us all on the right road. Maybe…" He looked down and gently puffed on the _atokirina_ and sent it swirling. "Maybe you just tipped the balance where it needed to be tipped.

"But the balance needs to be tipped again tonight. You chose me. You chose me to lead the People. I don't have any doubts about that. But others do. Neytiri told me that the People believe that you live in every tree, every flower, every animal that runs or flies and in every Na'vi heart. If that's true then I need you to touch all those hearts out there. Help them to believe. I can only do this if they believe."

He sat there for a while, but naturally there was no answer. He hadn't expected one. Slowly he pulled himself back into the wheelchair and beckoned for Tarro to come and get him. As he was carried back toward the others he tried to study the clan leaders, but it was hard. There were so many of them, they blended into one big mass. How was he going to talk to all of them? With the stupid mask of his exo-pack in place he couldn't even talk loud enough for them to all hear him at once! Norm was going to have to do a lot of the talking. Tarro set him down and he regarded all the blue faces, few of which looked the least bit friendly. He sat there for a moment and then took a deep breath. He pulled up his mask…

"Welcome noble clan leaders!" he cried as loudly as he could in Na'vi.

"I am Jake Sully… Toruk Macto."

Almost instantly a babble of voices swept through the clan leaders and then away , up the hill into the watching multitude. A tall Na'vi with elaborate earrings and tattoos on his face pointed at him and said something. Jake tried to follow his words, but he spoke too rapidly and he had a thick accent. It seemed clear that he was angry. Norm stepped forward and tried to talk to him, but two more Na'vi pushed forward and started shouting, too. Tarro joined the fray but Jake had no idea what was being said—or what to do.

He'd hoped that the words would come to him the way they had that day with Tarro, but this time there was nothing. He was empty. Nothing left. Maybe it had been a mistake to try to deal with everyone at once. Maybe he should have tried to talk with them in small groups. But there were so many, so many more arriving each day. He would have spent all his time trying to justify himself instead of running the war.

Off to his right he saw one of his guards and a clan leader exchange shoves until restrained by others. Could this lead to violence? Did he even care anymore? A crushing, suffocating blanket of fatigue settled over him. He was so _tired_ of this! Every day trying to make decisions, every day worried that the decisions he made were wrong, that they would lead to more useless deaths. Every day trying to be something he could never be again. He watched the squabbling people and anger grew inside him. _This isn't even my world! What the hell am I doing here? If you won't follow me then save it yourselves, dammit!_

He looked to Neytiri and he could see the anguish in her face. Did his face look like that? She stretched out her hand to him and he took it. Something warm and real in this foggy nightmare. They looked into each others' eyes and he didn't ever want to look away. He would keep fighting—for her! As long as he had breath left he would fight for her. But the others…

"Jake?"

The noise was dying down, but he didn't care. He held Neytiri's hand and looked into her eyes.

"Jake?" Norm was calling him. Let him call.

He mouthed the words: _I see you_ to Neytiri and she smiled. Her smile was worth more than…

"_JAKE!"_

"What is it, Norm?" he sighed.

"Uh… look?"

Jake realized that the noise had stopped entirely. It was dead quiet except for… the noise of wings overhead. He looked up and saw a huge black shape silhouetted against Polyphemus. It couldn't be…

"Toruk!" whispered Neytiri.

"But he's dead," said Jake in astonishment.

"Well, it stands to reason that there has to be more than one of them," said Norm.

"Reason has nothing to do with this," said Jake. "It's still a miracle."

"Uh… Jake… the miracle seems to be headed right for us."

And so it was. It swooped past the stone arches, scattering some of the ikran-riders in panic, and then curved back, circling the Tree of Souls twice in a tightening spiral and then it straightened out, heading right for Jake. The stunned silence of the Na'vi was broken and thousands of voices started to cry out.

"Jake…" said Norm nervously.

"Show some faith, man. Stand your ground."

But Jake had to admit that even he had a distinct urge to back away. This clearly wasn't the same Great Leonopteryx he had bonded with before. Its markings were different and it was… _bigger_.

It flapped its enormous wings as it braked itself and the wind was like a hurricane. Many of the Na'vi around him were driven back by it and he would have been blown away entirely except for Norm who grabbed the back of his wheelchair and leaned into it. It touched ground a dozen meters away from him and then spread its wings, reared back, and gave a roar that penetrated to his bones.

It then lowered itself down on its fore-wings and its head was less than a meter away from Jake. He didn't know whether to laugh, cry…or puke. He felt like doing all three. Instead he leaned forward and reached out to gently pat the beast's snout.

"Thank you," he said. "Thank you and thank Eywa. Tell Her I'm sorry I doubted Her." Toruk gave a strange cat-like growl and tilted its head so that the eyes on both sides could have a look at him. The massive jaws could take him, chair and all, in one gulp, but he didn't feel the slightest fear.

The noise around him was growing. Yipping Na'vi cheers and shouts of _Toruk Macto! _Began to erupt. It went on and on and on and he realized that his mask was fogging up due to the tears streaming down his cheeks.

"Jake, is this what you… uh… prayed for?" asked Norm, he nearly had to shout to be heard above the noise.

"Pretty much. Didn't quite expect this, though."

"Wow. D'you think she could get a cheeseburger delivered if I asked her?"

"Be my guest."

"Fried onions… extra pickles…."

"Norm, shut up, will you?"

"Right boss. Uh… you're not actually gonna try to ride this are you?"

No, I don't think so. Why? Do you want to give it a try?"

"No thanks!"

The noise was slowly dying again and a commotion behind him made him turn his chair so that Toruk was to his right and he could look back on all the clan leaders to his left. One of them, the tall tattooed one who'd first spoke, was approaching. He had a great bow in his hands. He stopped two meters away and went to his knees and placed the bow in front of Jake.

"Toruk Macto, command me!" he said.

In ones and twos and then in tens and twenties, the others did the same. "Command us!" they shouted. The watching throng began to chant again:

_Toruk Macto! Toruk Macto! Toruk Macto!_

Jake smiled and acknowledged with waves of his free hand. But his other hand clutched Neytiri's and his eyes kept drifting back to hers.

[Scene Break]

Miles Quaritch drained his glass and slammed it down on the desk. The bottle next to him was two-thirds empty. It had been full when he sat down. _Those damn bloody fools!_ They were going to give it all away! They were going to plead—beg!—the Na'vi to let them stay. They were going to beg a bunch of naked savages, armed with stone weapons, to _allow_ them to stay and dig in the ground!

Unbelievable!

When Quaritch had first arrived on Pandora it had seemed like the answer to his dreams. A new world, a new chance! He could _be_ something here! There were no politicians, no generals—who were all more politician than soldier—breathing down his neck, questioning his every action, robbing him of credit and glory. No, those bastards were all four light years away. Here, here he could act as he saw fit. Even Selfridge rarely gave him any trouble.

Oh, it was true that you couldn't breathe the air and there were dangerous animals and the Na'vi to contend with, but those were just worthy challenges to be overcome. He'd heard rumors that the scientists were working on projects to fix the air and once he'd put the fear of God into the Na'vi, they wouldn't be a problem. Hell, someday they might even be an asset.

No, you could build something here. It wasn't like Earth. You could build an _empire_ here!

But all those morons in the RDA could see was the unobtainium. _Dig more! Dig more!_ That was all they would say. They'd send mining equipment by the shipload but not the things he requested. More men, more gear, more modern weapons was what he'd asked for, but they'd sent only a fraction of what he'd needed. They'd had the greatest opportunity in centuries and they'd pissed it all away!

He filled his glass again and swallowed half of it.

Halstead, smooth-talking, gutless Halstead had spooked Selfridge, convinced him they couldn't win, that only capitulation could save his precious mine. And now blue-skinned aliens with bows would watch over the sweating human workers instead of humans with guns watching over the natives! Unacceptable!

Was there anything he could do? Selfridge would lean whichever way the wind was blowing hardest and with the recent screw-ups—none of which were his fault!—Selfridge would be listening to Halstead and not him. And the other officers, somehow nearly all the ones who were left were Halstead's cronies. How did that happen? How'd he manage to get all the men loyal to Quaritch killed off? It was a goddam plot, that's what it was! He'd turned all the pilots against him, most of the NCOs, too. You could tell just by looking at them. They were beaten men, no fight left in them at all. There were a few he could still count on, but not enough. There was no hope of forcing Selfridge to listen to reason.

If those stinking pilots had just had the guts to go into the Flux one more time! They could have killed Sully and left the Na'vi leaderless. And it had to have been Sully who was behind this uprising. They'd killed the blueskins before without anything like this happening. It had to be Sully! If they could just eliminate him somehow! If they could get him it would derail Halstead's plan to quit—there'd be no one to even negotiate _with_—and the Na'vi without a leader would eventually get bored and go home. Yeah, he was so damn close to winning this!

But Sully was the key and there was no way to get at him. Quaritch couldn't fly a chopper and none of the pilots would listen to him.

Well, maybe there was _one_ pilot who would listen to him…

He checked his computer, used it to locate a certain individual, and then left his office. He was surprised when he saw that it was dark outside already. Shit, how long had he been sitting there? Still it was better in the dark. He worked his way through the labyrinthine base and down to the officers club. It was practically deserted. Weren't many officers left and they were all planning how to surrender. But he spotted one figure, alone in a booth. He strode over and sat down.

"Howdy, Pinchot."

Lieutenant Jacques Pinchot looked up in surprise. He blinked and waved a hand. "Why hello, Colonel. Didn't expect to see you here. But from the rumors I'm hearing I guess we're both out of a job, eh?"

"Not yet, Lieutenant, not for either of us. Look, I'm sorry about how I chewed you out. You were right and I was wrong and that was a damn fine bit of piloting to get us back in one piece."

"Any landing you can walk away from," said Pinchot raising his glass. "Shame about the Dragon, though. She was a hell of a machine."

"That she was. How'd you like to go kill the man who was responsible for wrecking her?"

"In the Flux? Tonight?"

"Yup. Yer not afraid are ya?"

Pinchot blinked again. He'd clearly had a few and that was probably good for Quaritch's chances of persuading him. Just so long as he could still pilot… Eventually he shrugged.

"I got nothing to fly, Colonel."

"We've got other helicopters."

"I'm not checked out in Scorpions or Sampsons. I try to take one of them into the Flux, at night with no instruments, and I can guarantee you we won't be walking away from that!"

_Damn_! He hadn't thought of that. "There's nothing you can fly on this base?"

"Well… I could probably handle the Atlas, that big cargo chopper they use for the mine equipment. But she's completely unarmed. Not exactly suited for what you've got in mind."

No, and any attempt to rig a bomb like they'd used on the shuttle would take too long and attract too much attention. Selfridge and Halstead would find out and shut him down. No, it had to be quick and it had to be tonight.

"How much can that thing carry? Could it carry a squad of men and a couple of AMP suits?"

"Hell yeah. No problem at all."

"Well all right then! Come on, Lieutenant, we gotta job to do!"

[Scene Break]

Neytiri looked at Jake and smiled. This was the most amazing night of her life. Even more wonderful than the night they had mated. She looked to where Toruk lay, just a span away, and a thrill went through her. Eywa was with them! Eywa was with Jake!

And the others believed!

The shouts and cheers rang off the hillsides and just went on and on. Jake sat in his little wheeled-chair with a look of exaltation on his face. He'd worked so hard, poured so much of himself into this war to save the People and this was his vindication. No matter what came later this was his night of triumph. No one could take that from him.

The clan leaders were presenting themselves to Jake and pledging their obedience. A few of them still looked a little skeptical when they saw Jake close up, but one glance at the mighty Toruk silenced any doubts. She was still amazed that the beast was just lying there quietly. Jake hadn't even bonded to it! Not that he could, of course. Surely, Eywa's hand was calming the great flier.

Just as Jake's hand was calming her. He had not let go of her and he looked at her frequently. The love she felt for him swelled inside and she felt like she might burst. _I shall be here for you as long as you want me, Greatheart. _

But as the night wore on she could see the fatigue in Jake's face and feel her own growing. The meeting had turned into a celebration. Many were carrying torches, others were singing and dancing. Toruk just lay there and watched. Clan leaders came up to talk about war plans with Jake and Norm. Her mother was deeply involved with many of the discussions. It looked like it could go on all night.

"We should go," said Jake suddenly. "You need to rest."

She didn't want it to end, but she nodded. Jake immediately had Tarro gather the men who would carry them back to their camp. Jake told Norm to carry on with the clan leaders as long as they wanted to keep talking. Mother stayed to help him.

Tarro had contrived a system of two wooden poles that fit to Jake's chair so that two men could carry him. A similar, though larger set allowed four men to carry her. They got everything rigged up and prepared to go.

"Uh, what about the Big Guy?" asked Norm, pointing to Toruk.

Jake had the men carry him in front of Toruk. He pointed to the ground right in front of his nose and said firmly:

"Stay!"

For some reason this made Norm laugh. Toruk gave a snorting rumble and curled his neck so his head was under one of his wings.

"Home, James!" said Jake to his bearers.

They carried them through the crowd and many cheered. Some, apparently those who hadn't gotten a close look earlier, stared in startled silence. But the happy mood had infected almost everyone and people cheered without knowing why. Slowly they worked their way through the crowd and eventually broke free into the softly glowing night. Where the path was wide enough they were carried side by side and they held hands again. Jake had a gently smile on his face and he seemed more at peace than she'd ever seen him. _Let it end soon Great All Mother! He has served you so well, let him rest._

Eventually they reached their camp. Very few people were there, most had gone to the Tree and had not yet returned.

"Jake?"

"Hmm?"

"Jake, stay with me tonight." He looked startled. "Please?" He smiled and nodded and Tarro had the carriers let them both down by her little shelter. She pulled herself onto the pads and cloths and then helped Jake slide in next to her. The others departed, leaving them alone together. Jake gently stroked her cheek with his hand. She wanted to do the same, but his mask prevented it. All she could do was cradle him in her arms.

"I love you," he said. "No matter what happens, I love you."

"Now and for always, beloved."

They said nothing more. They just held each other. She made certain the straps on his mask were fastened firmly and then they closed their eyes.

She was just drifting off to sleep when a horrid noise yanked her awake. Jake flailed in her arms and shouted.

A wind like from Toruk's wings filled the air with dust and a blinding white glare banished the night.

[Scene Break]

Miles Quaritch jumped down from the right-hand door of the thundering Atlas helicopter. Lieutenant Gibson in another AMP suit did the same on the left. He immediately saw a Na'vi pinned in the glare of the helicopter's landing lights and cut him down with a burst from his 30mm autocannon. Gibson shot down two more off to the left. He sprinted forward to clear the landing spot for the helicopter and killed another blueskin.

The enemy appeared to have been taken completely by surprise which was exactly what he had been hoping for. The Atlas routinely flew back and forth between Hell's Gate and the mine so he was hoping that any enemy lookouts on the hills would think nothing of it taking off and heading south. Except this time it didn't land at the mine. Hugging the ground, Lieutenant Pinchot had continued south until well away from the area and then flew in a wide loop that brought them to the target from the east. Pinchot, flying almost recklessly, had brought then in at the helicopter's maximum speed and performed a flawless assault landing right in the midst of the enemy camp.

The huge machine thumped down and the infantry squad poured out. "Spread out! Sweep the area!" commanded Quaritch. "You know who we're looking for! Find him!" He and Gibson spearheaded the skirmish line that swept across the camp. The lab module was just ahead and he expected to find Sully and Spellman there.

There was some firing, but not much and Quaritch became worried that perhaps his quarry wasn't here. Where was everyone? They closed in on the lab module and the infantry cautiously went up to the airlock. Sully and Spellman would certainly be armed and awake. Maybe it would be better to just spray the thing with 30mm rounds and sort through the remains later. He raised his gun.

"Hey, Colonel! Look what I found!" cried Gibson suddenly. He turned and to his delight Gibson had two figures dangling in his metal grip. One was…

"Sully!" The traitor hung by one arm, looking dazed, his legs limp and useless. The other was a Na'vi woman. She was struggling like a wildcat, scratching and clawing at the fist that held her with her free hand. Oddly, her legs hung unmoving, just like Sully's. Was that his girlfriend?

"You gonna shoot 'em here, Colonel? Say the word and I'll let 'em loose for you."

It was so tempting! There was nothing he'd like better than to blow Sully apart right here! But the thought struck him that there might be something even better. "No. They'll be more use as hostages. We can always hang 'em later. Get them to the chopper."

"Right, sir!" Gibson trotted off with his catch.

"Sir," said Sergeant Major McGill running up. "There's no one in the shack except Spellman and he's in his link module. You want us to grab him or just blast the place?"

Again, he was tempted, but no… "We've got the ones that matter. They'll be the perfect bargaining chips. But if we take Spellman then there's no one to bargain _with_. He's one of those limp-dick scientists. He'll crumble as soon as we show him what we've got." Oh yeah, this was going to be _perfect_!

"If you say so, sir," said McGill, looking a bit skeptical.

"Back to the chopper, Sergeant. Mission accomplished. Let's boogie."

[Scene Break]

When the word reached Norm of the sudden attack he led a mass of warriors back toward the shack. He told himself that the mere fact that he was still in his avatar showed that it couldn't be all that serious, but when they got there all they found were two dozen dead Na'vi of Jake's guards. He was shocked when he saw that Tarro was among the dead.

But the shack was untouched…

…and Jake and Neytiri were gone.

The icy fear inside him was slowly replaced with a burning rage. He turned to the warriors around him.

"Find the clan leaders! Have them spread the word: We attack at dawn!"

To Be Continued


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

Captain Kim had the late night watch at Hell's Gate and she was glad of it. With Major Halstead back on duty she could stand a regular watch again instead of being the base executive officer which meant, essentially, being on duty round the clock. And the night watch was generally pretty uneventful. She suspected that Halstead had given it to her as a chance to rest up for a while. In any case, she liked watching the dawn. Even back on dirty, ugly Earth she'd always liked that time just before dawn. On Pandora the dawn was always worth watching and always different. Depending on the weather and where Pandora was in its orbit about its huge primary the sky could be any number of colors—many shades Kim didn't even have words to describe.

Today there was an enormous bank of clouds receding to the west after a heavy rain that had passed through during the night. As the eastern sky slowly brightened from a faint blue to a pale pink, the tops of the clouds suddenly turned brilliantly white as the approaching dawn touched them. Their lower sections were still in deep shadow, but Kim watched the light travel down them. In a few minutes the light would touch the dark hilltops, turning them to emeralds.

This really was a beautiful word. She was going to miss it when she went back to Earth. _If_ she made it back to Earth… They still hadn't managed to contact Sully. Repeated attempts had only gotten the same recorded message. It wasn't really surprising, she supposed, with only him and Spellman they couldn't be expected to be standing by their communicator all the time. But it was still annoying… _We're trying to surrender, dammit! At least pick up the phone!_

"Captain?" She turned and saw one of the flight controllers beckoning to her.

"Yes?"

"Uh, this is weird, ma'am. I'm reading Atlas Oh-One approaching from the southeast. But according to my log, Atlas Oh-One is on the ground at the mine site." Kim stepped over to the man's station and saw that he was right. The big cargo chopper was about fifteen minutes out and coming from somewhere it had no business being.

"Contact them," she ordered.

"Atlas Oh-One, this is Hell's Gate Tower, over." They responded immediately, requesting permission to land. "Atlas Oh-One, I have no flight plan for you. Please report your mission and cargo."

Kim flinched when she heard a different voice answer. "This is Colonel Quaritch returning to base. And our cargo is… victory!"

_Omigod, what has he done now?_

Kim stepped over to an intercom and punched in Halstead's number. "Major, sorry to wake you up, but we've got the Colonel inbound from a mission there's no record of. I think you need to get up here."

"Huh? All right, all right, I'll be there shortly."

Kim tapped her fingers nervously on the back of a chair and watched the blip for the helicopter getting closer. She dispatched a pair of Scorpions to act as escort for the unarmed Atlas and waited for Halstead to arrive. Suddenly there was a strangled cry from the sensor operator.

"Captain! Captain Kim!"

"What?"

"Contacts! Multiple contacts! Oh, Allah the Merciful…" Kim spun around to look at the main tactical display and for a moment thought that maybe something had gone wrong with it. An enormous red blob had appeared at a range of about sixty kilometers.

"What do we have here, Sergeant?" she demanded.

"Looks like banshees. A whole shitload of banshees. The computer is estimating… twenty thousand plus."

Kim pressed the button for the general alarm. The claxon began blaring. She touched the intercom again.

"Major, I _really_ think you need to get up here!"

[Scene Break]

Norm Spellman looked back over his shoulder and caught his breath. A vast cloud of banshees was rising into the sky. Thousands and thousands of them climbing out of the shadows into the bright light of a Pandora dawn. It would have been the most thrilling thing he'd ever seen if it were not for the agonizing fear and consuming rage that filled him. The enemy had Jake and Neytiri!

Not only had they taken them, but they had done so while pretending to try and negotiate! He'd found the messages they'd left while he and Jake were away from the shack and they spoke of trying to find a peaceful solution—and then they'd done this! He had immediately sent out the word to assemble the army. An advanced guard on horses had set out at once, even though it was still dark. After making sure everyone had their orders, Norm and the remaining mass of horsemen had followed. They were just approaching the devastated land where the Omaticaya Hometree had once stood. They were riding as fast they could manage over difficult ground, but now they could pick up speed: the wide road the RDA had cut through the forest ran both ways: now it would lead the Na'vi to Hell's Gate.

The ikran riders had waited until the sun was almost up and now the incredible host was airborne and heading south. In a few minutes they would sweep past the horsemen. Norm had given orders for them to land in the trees and wait when they got about twenty kilometers from the base. Wait and let the horses catch up. He hoped that they would obey.

Some of them might not, for he wasn't the only angry one in the Na'vi host. The word that the enemy had kidnapped Toruk Macto had swept through the camps like wildfire. Even though almost everyone had been awake all night, the people were outraged, infuriated and eager to strike a blow against the faithless enemy. They might not hold back and Norm wasn't sure he even wanted to try and hold them back.

A cheer broke out far in the rear of the column of horsemen and swept forward. Norm looked back again and gasped. There was a huge red shape at the front of the swarm of ikrans that was rapidly overtaking him.

"Toruk!" shouted ten thousand voices.

Norm hadn't been sure what the great flier would do when the army moved out. Now he knew. "I guess Eywa really is with us today."

Norm looked down at the portable computer/communicator that was slung on his horse. When they got closer he was going to contact Hell's Gate and give them one last chance to surrender. No negotiations this time! Either they gave back Jake and Neytiri—and Max if he was still alive—and laid down their weapons and got the hell out or they would face the wrath of the Na'vi!

"We're coming for you, guys! Oh yeah, we're coming!"

[Scene Break]

Major Sam Halstead reached the command center a few minutes before Colonel Quaritch's helicopter touched down. He glanced at the tactical display and its mass of red and went over to Harri Kim. "Status?' he asked.

"Large enemy forces are approaching in the air and on the ground, sir."

"How many?"

"Uh, pretty much all of them, sir. Satellite pics show nearly everything that had been in the Flux is now headed our way. No way to get exact counts, but we're guessing maybe twenty-to twenty-five thousand banshees and maybe twenty thousand more on the ground. Plus another few thousand already in the hills surrounding us. Looks like a maximum effort on their part, sir."

Halstead let out his breath. "Somehow I don't think that this happening at almost the same moment as our dear Colonel's arrival proclaiming victory is just a coincidence, Captain."

"Unless they're all coming here to surrender," said Kim. He looked at her and she had a wry smile on her face.

"Yeah, right," said Halstead, smiling in turn. "No idea what Quaritch was doing?"

"No sir. There's no record of his flight—although there ought to be."

He nodded. Despite Quaritch's recent problems, he was still technically in command and most people would still obey a direct order and there were even still a few personally devoted to him. It wouldn't have been a problem for him to slip away unnoticed. But what the hell had he done to get the Na'vi so riled up? "Is there any indication of damage to the Tree of Souls?"

"No, sir. No change in the satellite images. I don't think he hit that. But I have everyone here at their posts. All weapons manned and ready. Well, some of the militia haven't responded to the alert, but we were expecting that."

"Good. Well here he comes, so I guess we'll find out what's happening shortly." He pointed to where the big cargo chopper had just appeared over the hills. By the time the machine touched down Parker Selfridge had shown up and he had to brief him. His eyes were very large as he stared at the mass of enemy on the displays.

"But… but why now?" sputtered Selfridge. "What has Quaritch done?"

"I've won the goddam war is what I've done!" boomed Colonel Quaritch as he entered the command center. "No thanks to any of you!" He gestured behind him as a half dozen troopers entered. One of them was pushing a small wheeled cart on which sat a man that Halstead recognized as Jake Sully. The rebel leader glared at everyone but didn't look terribly upset at his situation. Two troopers grabbed him by the arms and plunked him down on a chair. Apparently Quaritch was so disdainful of his crippled foe that he hadn't even bothered to tie him or handcuff him.

Unlike the other captive.

Four puffing men hauled in a Na'vi woman. Two medical stretchers had been tied together and she had been tied to that with her wrists and ankles secured by straps to the stretcher poles. She snarled and hissed at her captors. They propped her up against a control console a few meters from Sully. On Quaritch's orders most of the troopers withdrew, but Sergeant Major McGill remained, cradling an assault rifle in his arms. McGill had come to Pandora with Quaritch and seemed quite devoted to him.

"Welcome back, Colonel," said Halstead warily. "You need to know that the entire enemy force is moving this way. Perhaps fifty thousand of them. Distance is now about thirty klicks. It looks like they mean to attack in strength."

"Not for long! We have their leader and his girlfriend. I left Spellman alive so we can negotiate their surrender. We've won!"

"What… what if they don't answer when we call?" said Harri Kim. "We've been trying to contact them for almost a full day! What if they just keep coming and attack?"

Quaritch just smiled. "Oh, I'm bettin' they'll talk to us! I'm bettin' they will!"

[Scene Break]

Max Patel sat in his cell and wondered what was going on. There had been alerts on and off for the last two weeks, but somehow this one seemed different. There had always been two guards at the detention center control station, but now there was only one and he seemed nervous. The other two cells had been filled with a number of soldiers and miners that had been brought in drunk last night but a couple of sergeants had come for them and hustled them away, snarling that they were needed at their posts. Was the big Na'vi attack that everyone had been fearing finally come? He sure hoped so. It was boring as hell in this cell!

After his talk with Captain Kim he'd had some hopes that there might be a negotiated settlement, but nothing had happened since then. He's given up hope of a peaceful solution, but he damn well wanted some sort of solution. He doubted he'd live to see it, but he'd reached the stage where almost anything was better than rotting in here.

Time went by and nothing happened and Max was starting to doubt that anything would happen today. But then, suddenly there was someone at the outer door of the detention center.

_Cynthia!_

To his surprise, Cynthia Sundstrom was standing there with a small bundle of something and waving to the guard.

"No visitors," said the guard gruffly. "Not while we're on alert. And this guy don't get none in any case."

"But I just have a few clean clothes for him," said Cynthia motioning toward Max. She unrolled the bundle and it, indeed, just contained pants, shirt, underwear and socks. She pulled out a little slip of paper. "I even got Colonel Quaritch's permission."

The guard frowned and looked at his surveillance monitors for a moment. "There's nothin' about this on the order log." He got up from his chair. "Let me see that." He went over to the heavy glass door and pressed the switch to open it. Max gasped when he saw something large moving on one of the monitors.

The guard reached out for Cynthia's slip of paper…

…and a large blue hand reached in for him.

It grabbed him by the shirt and flung him across the corridor to slam against the opposite wall. He slid to the floor and didn't move.

"Cynthia!"

"Max!" She grabbed the key-card off the guard and dashed into the room and opened his cell. She flung her arms around him and hugged. A couple of avatars were now crouched in the doorway, grinning.

"What… what's going on?" gasped Max.

"We're not sure, but the Na'vi are about to attack in strength—we think. Oh Max, we've been planning on getting you out of here for days, but we didn't know when to try it. But now seems like the time. Almost all the soldiers are at their defense posts and hardly anyone's inside the main buildings."

Max shook his head. This was crazy. Where did they think they were going to take him? Just hiding was no good. But if the Na'vi were attacking…

"So… So what's the plan?"

Cynthia looked uncertain. Max looked around the corner and saw that there were a dozen hunched-over avatars in the corridor. Nearly all of them were carrying the avatar-sized machine guns that had been made for them. "At first we were just thinking that we could smuggle you off the base and get you to Jake and the others," said Cynthia. "But now…"

"If the Na'vi are attacking we're not going to be able to get out of here," said Max. "In all the confusion all the soldiers will think the avatars are Na'vi and all the Na'vi will think that you and I are soldiers. We'll get killed from both sides."

"Then what should we do?"

"You say that most of the soldiers are out of the building?"

"I think so."

"Then maybe we can win the battle from the inside."

[Scene Break]

Jake sat in the chair and watched all the activity around him. He looked over to Neytiri and she looked back. She didn't seem to be hurt as far as he could tell. His own left wrist was aching where the goon in the AMP suit had held him, but other than that he was okay. But there wasn't a damn thing he could do.

Quaritch was conferring with his officers and if he was reading the tactical display correctly Norm had not been idle in the hours since their capture! The Na'vi were coming. All of them. He dreaded the bloodbath that was about to begin but there wasn't anything he could do about it. In one way it was almost a relief. He had no illusions about his or Neytiri's chances. If the attack went ahead then they were both as good as dead.

_But we were both ready to die, weren't we?_

If the attack succeeded and he fully expected it to, then Hell's Gate would be wiped out. The People and the world would be saved. The cost would be terrible, but now that he would pay the same cost, not be sitting safe and useless back in camp, it didn't seem quite so bad. _We'll all be paying a visit to Eywa soon enough. _And Neytiri would be there, too. She certainly believed that. He tried to believe it, too.

"Still no response from the enemy, "said a Captain named Kim. "The banshees are holding at twenty kilometers. The ground forces are just joining them, now."

"Colonel Quaritch," said Parker Selfridge. "If they won't talk to us these hostages you've taken won't do us any good at all! What are you going to do then?"

"Oh, they'll talk to us. They're just blustering."

_Like you? _During the whole miserable flight here Quaritch had been gloating and boasting, Jake had tried to ignore him. But Quaritch was starting to sweat a little now. _Turn up the heat, Norm! Turn up the heat!_

"Mr. Sully," said a man in a major's uniform. Jake couldn't recall having met him before. The name patch on his tunic said 'Halstead'. "Will Dr. Spellman contact us, do you think?"

Jake just shrugged.

"If he does contact us, can you talk him out of attacking?" asked Selfridge.

"Why would I want to do that? Unless you're prepared to surrender, of course."

"We would be ready to negotiate…"

"The hell with that!" shouted Quaritch. "We're not negotiating anything! The blueskins get the hell out or you're dead, Sully! You and your girlfriend!" He had his pistol out and he placed himself between Jake and the others.

"Colonel," said the Major, "we need to approach this in a rational…"

"Shut your mouth, Halstead!" snapped Quaritch. "You've been trying to sell us out ever since you got out of the infirmary. I'm in command here and if you try to undermine my authority or deal with the enemy then I'll _treat_ you like the enemy? Understand?"

"Colonel Quaritch!" said Selfridge. "I'll remind you that you work for me! And if I think that we should negotiate then…"

"Then what?" snarled Quaritch and his pistol was pointed right at the Administrator. "You'll sell us out, too? I don't think so! I'm calling the shots here and you better remember that!" He motioned the sergeant major to stand ready with his weapon.

Selfridge blinked and opened his mouth, but before he could say anything one of the technicians exclaimed. "Incoming message, sir! It's from the enemy!"

Quaritch smiled. "I knew they'd blink first. Okay, Sergeant set up a visual. Focus in on Sully, the girl, and me in the middle here." He swiveled his head around the room like a gun turret. "All the rest of you keep your mouths shut! You, too, Sully!" He turned to face him. "One word out of you and I'll put a hole through the girl's pretty head, you got that"

Jake nodded. He didn't plan to say anything anyway.

Quaritch positioned himself right between Jake and Neytiri with his gun in his hand and nodded to the com-tech. One of the monitors lit up and there was Norm in his avatar. He was talking: "… to Hell's Gate Control. This Norm Spellman to…. Oh… _Jake_!" Norm's eyes got very wide.

"Yeah, we got him, Spellman," said Quaritch. "And now here's what's gonna happen. You are going to turn all your blue friends around and tell them to go home. After that… well, we can discuss that later."

"Go to hell!" cried Norm. _Good goin' buddy!_

"Oh now that wasn't nice," said Quaritch. "Y'know, I recall us going through this before with that little guy, Patel. Seems to me you were looking a might green at the thought of seeing his brains blown out. Well, today we've got two for the price of one. Do as I say or both of your friends die!"

Norm's face was twisted in anger, fear and indecision.

_Don't give in, Norm! Don't give in!_

[Scene Break]

Max paused at the stair that led up to the main control center. He waited while the avatars caught up. They were way too tall for the corridors.

"So, do we go up?" asked Cynthia.

"We don't know how many guards are up there. Could get messy if we get stuck in a firefight."

"Well, I'd sure hate to lose my avatar," said Pablo Desante. "But I'd rather lose it than me, Max. Which is what's gonna happen if the Na'vi have to bust their way in here. I'm willing to take the chance." The other avatars all agreed.

Max nodded. There didn't seem to be much choice. He was about to tell them to go ahead when he noticed that the stairway also went _down_. "Wait a second. Two of you come with me. The rest of you get ready to attack."

[Scene Break]

"I'm not bluffing, Spellman!" said Quaritch. Jake watched Norm's reaction and prayed that he wouldn't give in.

Norm swallowed and looked right at him. "I'm sorry, Jake." Then he looked at Quaritch. "No deal Quaritch. Let me tell _you_ what's going to happen! You are going to put down your guns—everyone! Then you are going to release your hostages. The Na'vi are going to move in and take control of the base and you are going to get on board your shuttles and leave. Otherwise we're coming in there to get you!"

Quaritch sneered. "Like you've got the balls, Spellman! All right, which one goes first to show you that I'm serious? The girl or Sully? Jake tensed as Quaritch swung the gun towards Neytiri and then back towards him. "Maybe I should flip a coin?" The gun was pointed at Jake's head, not half a meter away and Quaritch thumbed back the hammer.

Then the lights went out. All the control terminals went dead, too. The only light was streaming through the windows.

What…?" exclaimed Quartich.

Jake moved.

His legs were useless , but that had only made his arms all the stronger. He grabbed Quaritch's wrist in his left hand and forced the pistol down. It went off with an echoing bang. Jake pushed himself up and rammed his right fist into Quaritch's face with every ounce of strength he had. He was aiming for his throat, but as he tried to twist away Jake's blow hit him right in the mouth. Jake felt teeth crunch under his fist and Quaritch staggered away with a cry of pain and surprise, to bump into Neytiri's stretcher. Blood streamed from his mangled mouth, but unfortunately he still had his pistol. Jake had hoped to grab it away from him, but he'd failed. That pistol was now coming up to point right at him. Quaritch's face was twisted into an animal snarl. _Good-bye Neytiri._

But then there was a loud ripping noise and six long blue fingers wrapped themselves around Quaritch's head. Neytiri gave a savage twist and Quaritch's neck snapped with a sickening crunch. He slumped to the floor like a sack of cement. His eyes were wide and his mouth moved silently. He looked right at Jake for a moment and then the eyes glazed over. Lifeless.

"You bitch!" cried the sergeant major. He aimed his assault rifle at her.

"Neytiri!" screamed Jake.

There was a roar of gunfire—but not from the sergeant major's gun. A blast of fire tore through him and flung him against one of the control stations, then he tumbled to the floor, just as dead as Quaritch.

Jake looked over his shoulder and a pair of avatars stood crouched in the entrance, each with a machine gun poised and ready.

Jake looked back at Neytiri. The torn bindings hung from her wrists, but she seemed unharmed. "Are you all right?" he asked.

She looked down at Quaritch. "My father is avenged. I am avenged."

A moment later Max Patel burst in and looked around. Jake was very glad to see him alive.

"Uh, it might be good if nobody moved," said Max.

[Scene Break]

Captain Harriet Kim stared at Colonel Quaritch's body and then over at Sergeant Major McGill, who was still bleeding all over the floor. Ten avatars had emerged from the stairwell and had spread out to cover everyone in the control room. No one seemed inclined to resist. Major Halstead took a step forward.

"Mr. Sully?" he said. "I'd like to discuss the terms of our surrender."

Selfridge made a strangling noise, but Halstead waved him to silence.

"Okay, same terms as before: You guys get on your ships and get the hell out. In return we'll let you get on your ships and get the hell out. Agreed?" Sully didn't look to be in any mood for bargaining.

"You realize that we can't evacuate the base overnight?" said Halstead.

"I'll give you a week. And we occupy the place in the meantime."

"Uh, sir," said Kim. "We need to call off the Na'vi as soon as possible. Before it's too late." All the sensor monitors were dead. She glanced out the window, afraid to see swarms of banshees approaching. With the power out and the command center in enemy hands, any defense was doomed to fail…

"Well?" said Sully.

"All right, we agree." Selfridge gave a hiss of dismay.

"Good. Max, can you get the power back on so we can tell Norm not to kill everyone?"

"Right away!" cried Patel. He dashed off.

A few minutes later the lights came back on and then the control stations. There was supposed to be backup power for the critical systems, but she supposed Patel had just thrown both switches. This place wasn't built with internal security in mind. A few more minutes and they had communications with Spellman. He seemed very relieved and agreed to call of the attack.

"Well, Harri," said Halstead. "It looks like we have our marching orders."

To Be Continued


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

In the end it took the Sky People ten days to pack up and leave. Jake was feeling sufficiently merciful after seven days to grant them the extra time they needed. A great deal of his good mood could be attributed to the fact that Cynthia Sundstrom had examined Neytiri and declared that she could operate with an excellent chance of restoring the use of her legs.

And so now Jake sat next to Neytiri in the avatar lab in Hell's Gate waiting for her to wake up from her surgery. Max and Cynthia and Norm were waiting with him. He noticed that Max and Cynthia were sitting very close to each other and he rarely saw them when they weren't together. Lucky guy.

"Don't worry, Jake," said Cynthia. "The operation went very well. I'm expecting a full recovery—although it will take a while. I hope Neytiri will have the patience for the therapy."

"She's learned a lot about patience lately," replied Jake. "She'll do fine. And thanks. Thanks a lot."

"Glad to do it. Oh… I think she's coming round."

Jake looked to Neytiri and saw that she was stirring. He tensed when the sheet covering her feet twitched slightly. "Was that…? Did she…?" he gasped.

"Sure looked that way to me," said Max with a huge smile.

Neytiri's eyes fluttered open and rolled around in a disconcerting fashion before settling on him. "Jake?"

"Hi, Beautiful. How d'you feel?"

"Tired… strange… like before…"

Cynthia stood up and pulled the sheet off her legs. She poked Neytiri's foot. It jerked. "Did you feel that?"

"I… yes… _yes_!" The joy on her face was like sunrise. Jake found himself grinning like a loon. "Jake! I can feel my legs!" She started to reach for him, but he put out his hands.

"Easy, girl! Take it easy! You've got a lot of healing to do, but you are going to be just fine." He took her hand and squeezed it. "It will take some time to get you on your feet again, but we've got the time." He leaned forward and stroked her cheek. "All the time in the world."

An hour later he rolled out of the recovery room to find his friends waiting. "She's asleep," he said.

"The readings look very good, Jake" said Cynthia. "A year from now she'll never know she was even hurt."

"That's great. But what about you guys? You sure you want to stay? The last shuttle's leaving tomorrow and you can still be on board."

"Are you crazy?" said Max. "The way those guys feel about me, they'd shove me out an airlock before we even got out of orbit."

"Where Max goes—or stays—I go or stay," said Cynthia. She smiled at him.

"I'm here for the long haul, boss," said Norm.

"Yeah, we're all sort of marked men, aren't we?" nodded Jake. "But what about all the others who say they want to stay? Most of them haven't done anything they could be prosecuted for. Staying here is probably a one-way decision."

"Nearly all of the avatar drivers are staying, and about a dozen of the other scientists," said Max. "They've thought about it and talked about it and they've made their decision. If the Na'vi will let them stay, they want to."

"Jake has the final say on that," said Norm. "The clan leaders have all agreed that Toruk Macto makes any decisions concerning the Sky People."

"Toruk Macto," said Cynthia. "I'm still not sure I understand about that."

"It's a long story," said Jake. "I'll tell you about it… later."

"But what about you, Jake?" asked Norm. He looked at him and then he looked at the door to Neytiri's room. "What are you going to do?"

The question had been nagging at him ever since Cynthia said she could fix Neytiri up. As long as she was crippled there was a certain sense in them staying together. Two halves making a whole. But a whole plus a half didn't make anything.

"You set her body free, Cynthia. I guess… I guess I need to set the rest of her free."

"Oh, Jake…" said Cynthia. "I might… this surgery isn't set up for humans, but maybe I can… I might be able to…"

"Well, if you can, I won't turn it down. But that still doesn't solve the basic problem."

She shook her head sadly. "We're not set up make avatars here, Jake. We don't have the equipment or the know-how. It's an incredibly involved process and the powers-that-be didn't see the necessity of having that capability here."

"Maybe we could buy one for you from Earth," suggested Norm. "I mean there's a pile of unobtainium in storage. The ship up in orbit is gonna be so crowded with the refugees, they can't take all that. Maybe we could…"

Jake shook his head. "With all the communications time and negotiations and all it could take twenty years to get an avatar here."

"It probably wouldn't work anyway," said Max. "Without the driver there for comparison testing getting a viable clone delivered here would be a real long shot." He paused and looked at him. "But Jake, can you explain again about what you were trying to do with Grace and her avatar at the Tree of Souls? You only mentioned it briefly when we talked before and, well, frankly it didn't make a lot of sense."

Jake sighed. "Norm? You probably understand it better than I do."

"Well, in the simplest terms, we were trying to shift Grace's consciousness from her human body into her avatar body."

"What?" said Cynthia, clearly shocked. "But that's impossible! They've been trying to figure a way to do that back on Earth for decades and with no success!"

"Really?" said Jake.

"It's just rumors, really," said Max. "Human cloning is illegal, but when has that ever stopped the super-rich? Supposedly there have been experiments to make young clones for old billionaires and shift their minds into the clones. With no luck—thank God. Probably just an urban legend. But what on Earth—or on Pandora—made you think you could do it with Grace?"

"Desperation, mostly," said Jake.

"Well, that and something Mo'at and Neytiri told us," added Norm. "You're familiar with Grace's theory about there being a planetary network, this 'Eywa Phenomena' as she called it?

"Yeah?"

"It's no theory," said Jake. "Eywa's real."

"I won't argue with you after what I saw," said Norm. "But anyway, the Na'vi can access this network. And according to Mo'at, one of the duties of the clan tsahik is to be the keeper of the clan's history. She claims that at the end of her life the old tsahik can transfer that information to the new tsahik. They call it the _Tireafya'o_, 'The Path of the Spirit'. They both link to the Tree of Souls using their queues and Eywa—or something—transfers those memories. So, when we presented the mortally wounded Grace to them they proposed that perhaps Eywa could transfer not just some memories, but Grace's entire personality to her avatar."

"That's… that's incredible," said Max. "But it didn't work."

"No. They tried and it was really something to see, Max! These glowing white tendrils grew up out of the ground in a matter of seconds and wrapped both the bodies. A big thick wad of them went right into the base of Grace's skull, right where the spinal cord would be. The whole thing was pulsing with light. _Something_ was happening! Grace woke up for a moment and said that she was with Eywa, and yeah, I know, that doesn't prove anything. After that… she was gone and the avatar was still inert. Mo'at said there hadn't been enough time to compete the transfer because of Grace's wounds."

"Huh," said Max, looking off into the distance at nothing. "I need to think about this…"

"Yeah," said Norm, "And I gotta get some sleep. Being Toruk Macto's lieutenant is a hell of a job."

"Go ahead, Norm," said Jake. "You've earned it. I think I'm going to go and sit with Neytiri a while."

[Scene Break]

Captain Kim watched the line of people heading into the waiting shuttle. This was the last load. When she and Major Halstead stepped aboard and the hatch closed that would be the end of the RDA presence on Pandora.

At least for now.

"It's a shame we never got a chance to put our proposal before Sully, sir," she said to Halstead who was standing beside her. "I wonder if we could have made it work?"

"I don't know, Harri. Quaritch scuttled any hope of that when he kidnapped Sully. Oh well, I won't be sorry to be getting home."

"You don't seem too upset about us getting kicked out of here, sir."

Halstead laughed. "I'm Canadian, Harri. We haven't fought in a real war in almost two hundred years. But the Canadian Army keeps getting 'volunteered' for peace-keeping missions all over the world. Usually we get sent to some hell hole in the midst of a civil war where a strong group is massacring a weaker group. We're put in there with inadequate forces, obsolete equipment, and impossible rules of engagement. We do our best, but time after time the bad guys seem to win and the good guys get screwed." He paused and looked at the swarms of circling banshees and the lines of Na'vi warriors watching the loading.

"Just once it's nice to see the good guys win."

"Even if that makes us the bad guy?" Kim was a little startled at the thought.

"We did our duty, Harri, you can be proud of that. You're a damn fine soldier and it's been an honor serving with you."

His words sent a thrill through her. Right at that moment it mattered. Very much. "Thank you, sir," she whispered. "The honor is mine."

They stood there in an awkward silence for a moment and then Halstead said: "Looks like the good-bye committee is here." He pointed and she saw a large group of Na'vi on foot approaching. In their midst was Jake Sully in his wheelchair. It hadn't been evident until after the final confrontation in the Control Center that Sully's avatar had been destroyed during the first battle. _So why are they still following him?_ It made no sense to her at all.

The group stopped a dozen meters away and once again Kim was reminded just how intimidating the huge natives could be. Apparently this group was made up of leaders or other important Na'vi because they were all much more lavishly clothed and decorated than the average warrior. Sully exchanged a few words with them and then rolled forward. Halstead came to attention and perforce, so did she.

"Mr. Sully," said Halstead. "This is the last of us. When the shuttle boosts every human, except for the ones you are allowing to stay, will have left Pandora. This meets the terms of our agreement."

"Thank you, Major," said Sully. "It… it's a shame we couldn't have dealt with you from the start. It would have saved so much trouble."

"Perhaps."

"I hope you folks will have the sense not to come back uninvited."

"I can't make any guarantees about that," said Halstead. "Except that if they do come back, I won't be with them."

Sully nodded. "Safe trip, Major, Captain."

Halstead gave a tiny bow. "Good luck to you, sir." Then he turned away and headed for the shuttle. Kim fell in beside him.

"Do you think they will come back to Pandora, sir?"

"I don't know, Harri. I hope not."

"Really? Cutting off the flow of unobtainium could really screw things up back on Earth."

"Well, it's going to be cut off for quite a while no matter what they decide to do, eh? But there's unobtainum on the other moons we see orbiting up there. It would be more expensive to mine on them because the conditions are a lot more hostile, but then they wouldn't need any security at all so it might balance out. But in any case I hope they leave the Na'vi alone."

"You admire them, don't you, sir?"

"I do, but it's not just that." He paused and his face was troubled. "The problem is there's no way we can beat them."

"You really believe that?" asked Kim in surprise.

"Oh, we can kill them, Harri. But beat them so they stay beaten? I doubt it. You remember the Na'vi woman who killed Quaritch?"

"I'm not likely to forget!"

"Well, I suddenly realized the other day that I had seen her before. During the battle. She appeared out of nowhere and killed six of my men. Six! An AMP suit blew a 30mm hole right through her and put her down. But I could see she wasn't dead. And then there she was again, half-paralyzed and she still broke her bonds and tore Quaritch's head off!

"With that sort of spirit… No, we could come back here and use nukes or other WMDs and kill the Na'vi. We could kill them, but no, we could never conquer them."

"I don't think I'd want to be a part of anything like that, sir."

They reached the ramp of the shuttle. Halstead slapped her on the back.

"Come on, Harri, let's go home."

[Scene Break]

Jake watched the shuttle until it had vanished in the clouds. They were gone. The Sky People were gone.

The enemy was gone.

_My job is done .I'm done._

A profound sense of relief filled him. The burden which had so nearly crushed him was blowing away like a cluster of _atokirina _in a strong wind. The clan leaders were all congratulating him and he made some automatic responses, but he was hardly paying attention. They would all be leaving soon, returning to their homes with glorious tales of how they had routed the Sky People. He wondered what their tales and songs would have to say about the tiny, crippled freak who claimed to be Toruk Macto?

Done. Done was a good word. Only one job remained: getting Neytiri back on her feet. And when that was done…

The crowd dispersed and he pushed his chair toward the avatar lab and Neytiri. He wished she'd had been out here with him, but she was watching on the monitor by her bed. He hoped she was pleased with this victory which was hers as much as anyone's.

Max Patel caught up with him as he was leaving the airlock. "Jake? Jake, you got a minute?"

"I was just going to see Neytiri."

"This won't take too long. But it's important."

"Okay, what?"

"Follow me." Jake shrugged and did so. Max led him to another part of the lab. They came to a room and Norm was there in his human form along with Cynthia Sundstrom. He was surprised to see an avatar lying on the table. It wasn't Norm's; he recognized it as belonging to a man named Lindquist.

"What's this?"

"Jake," said Max, "Chuck Lindquist didn't stay on Pandora. He has family on Earth and had to go back to them. But he left his avatar. Couldn't have taken it even if he wanted, actually: there aren't any cryo-pods big enough for it on the ship."

"So? I can't link to it, can I?"

"No. but there might be another possibility."

"Like what?"

"Well, based on what you were telling me about what you tried to do for Grace, I think there is a possibility that Eywa could transfer you into this avatar."

"What?" gasped Jake. The idea was so… so… wonderful he was afraid to even try to believe it. "But… but I thought there had to be a genetic match for the link to work?"

"This isn't a link, Jake," said Cynthia. "Assuming it could work at all—which is an enormous assumption in my opinion—the normal rules probably wouldn't apply."

"No," agreed Max. "This would be something different. In a normal link the driver's consciousness isn't actually shifting to the avatar, he stays in his human body. All that's happening is that sensory input and commands from the brain are being re-routed to and from the avatar. That's why we call them avatar _drivers_: they are driving the avatar, but they aren't _becoming_ the avatar anymore than you become a car when you drive it. For the link to work there has to be an almost exact congruency between the brains of the driver and his avatar—hence the need for a genetic match. But this… if it can work at all, this would be different. The avatar's brain is essentially blank except for the autonomic routines that control the heart and breathing and so forth. In theory Eywa could record your memories, your personality, everything that makes you you, into this blank avatar brain."

"_Theoretically_," said Cynthia. "But it might not work at all—with unforeseeable consequences to you, Jake."

"I'm getting the feeling that you two don't agree on this," said Jake.

Max and Cynthia looked at each other uncomfortably. "I'm just trying to help," said Max.

"And I'm a medical doctor," said Cynthia. "I've taken an oath to 'do no harm'. You are alive and healthy and we might even be able to fix your spine, Jake. Asking me to endorse something that might leave you dead or a vegetable is… very hard. I'm finding it difficult to believe that this Tree of Souls can even tap into a human's nervous system."

"Well," said Max, "we know for a fact that Na'vi can link to a number of different animals and the Tree of Souls and I'm pretty certain they're not using a General Electric DynaScan Model 485 Neural Interface!"

"Max! That's completely irrelevant and you know it! We're talking about a _human_ nervous system and…"

Jake got the impression he was watching a re-run of some previous argument and decided to derail it. "Okay, I get the picture. Seems like it will have to be my decision—and Eywa's. Assuming you're letting me have this avatar."

Max shrugged. "There's nothing else we can do with it, Jake. It's yours if you want it."

"Okay, I'll have to think about this. I'm not going to do anything until Neytiri is back on her feet. Will it keep that long?"

"We have automatic computer routines that will keep the avatar healthy for months," said Max. "You've got some time."

"Okay, thanks." He stopped and looked at each of them and smiled. "Thanks for thinking about me. I'll get back to you."

He headed for Neytiri's room and found Norm walking beside him.

"You're going to do it, aren't you?"

Jake grinned at him. "Hell, yes!"

[Scene Break]

Norm looked at Jake's grinning face and said a silent prayer—to Eywa—that this would work out for him. _He deserves it. You know he does._ But there was no smile on his own face. "Jake, wait a minute."

"What's wrong? Norm, you've been down in the dumps for weeks. Problems with Lanuma?"

"No… no, everything's fine in that department. I'm becoming really fond of her."

"I could tell. So what's the matter?"

"It's been eating at me and I have a confession to make."

"About what?"

Norm bit his lip. He wasn't sure how to say it. "Jake… Jake I would have done it."

"Done what?"

"I would have let Quaritch kill you. You and Neytiri. I wasn't going to give in."

"Well of course not! I didn't want you to! If that's what's been eating you, forget it!"

"Jake, you're my friend. Neytiri's my friend. And I was gonna let Quartich _kill_ you both! What kind of friend does that?"

He was startled when Jake grabbed his hand. "The best kind, Norm. The very best."

[Scene Break]

Neytiri hoped she hadn't made a mistake. She'd insisted on being the one to carry Jake's human body to the Tree of Souls, but she wasn't sure her legs were up to it. It had been a quarter of a year—three months in human parlance—since the operation that had given her her legs back, but they were still weak and wobbly sometimes. She'd surely hate to drop him, or even have to ask for help carrying him.

"You okay?" asked Jake. He lay in her arms, wearing only his breathing mask.

"Yes, I am fine." She was so filled with hope—and fear. They had been talking about this for months and tonight was the night. Tonight Jake might become one of the People again—forever. Or tonight nothing might happen. Or worse, she might lose Jake entirely. Jake was determined to try, despite the risks. She still wasn't sure how she felt. To have Jake back in a form that could hold her, run beside her through the forest, fly an ikran with her… give her children, would be a miracle so wonderful she could scarcely keep from shouting at the mere thought. But to lose him… No matter what flesh Jake wore, his spirit was still the same and she loved him more than… anything. Before he'd told her of this possibility she'd made the decision that she would stay with him no matter what. She meant that and would stand by it even if he decided to remain in his human form. But he wanted this so much! And there was no denying that she did, too. She was willing to leave it in Eywa's hands.

She reached the Tree of Souls without falling or dropping Jake and gently set him down. Normspellmon and Lanuma had just carried in the dreamwalker body Jake hoped to go to. She'd looked at it before but she stopped and stared again. It had the Sky People features the same as Jake's dreamwalker: the extra fingers and toes, the bit of hair above the eyes, the husky stature. The face… it was a good face withal, she decided. She could come to love that face—as long as it belonged to Jake.

Her mother approached. All the assembled people of the clan were in their places around the tree. "We are ready," said her mother. She looked at Jake. "Do you wish to go ahead, Jakesully?"

Jake smiled and nodded. "Let's do it." Neytiri squatted own and embraced him.

"I love you," she whispered.

"And I love you," he replied, stroking her face. "I'll see you again soon."

She stood up and said a silent prayer. _Allmother hear me, grant us this boon! _

It began,

[Scene Break]

Jake lay on the ground and wondered what was going to happen. He remembered when they'd tried this with Grace. It didn't take very long—of course it had failed that time. Maybe a success would take longer. Mo'at had begun to chant and the people all around were singing their replies. Waves of light were passing along the ground and into the tree and back again. He felt a tickling on his arms and his back. Those little tendrils, yeah. Neytiri was moving around him nervously. He wanted to reassure her, but his arms were growing numb and speaking seemed like it would be far too much effort. He was floating, floating… And then, suddenly, he was flying upward into the glowing branches above. Flying into a tunnel of light that was remarkably similar to what he saw when he linked to his avatar.

He flew through the tunnel and landed in a pool of white light. There was nothing there but the light. He had no body, he was just _there_.

_Jakesully._

A voice called to him. He wasn't hearing it with his ears. He had no ears. But the voice called to him and it sounded just like…

"Grace?" he wasn't sure how he was able to speak with no mouth, but somehow he did.

_No._

Not Grace? Well, there was only one other possibility… "Eywa?"

_So I am called._

"You sound like Grace."

_I learned your tongue from her. She is with me._

"I'm glad. Uh… I guess you know why I'm here?"

_Hundreds of the People pray to me that I place you in this… avatar. Is that what you wish?_

"Yes. I know it's a lot to ask and…"

_Few have ever served me so well. Anything in my power is yours to ask, Jakesully._

"Then yes, that's what I want. Can you do it?"

_I have never done this before. But let us try._

"Yes! Let's!"

A feeling of warmth… peace… love filled him. No fear, no fear at all…

He drifted out of the pool and back into the tunnel. Forward, rushing forward. He was eager to reach the other end…

…Neytiri would be waiting.

THE END

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Okay, I could have been REALLY nasty and made the spare avatar female! I thought about it but finally said: "Naaaah!" :) Hope you enjoyed the story.


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